


If I Go (There Will Be Trouble)

by midas_touch_of_angst



Series: Should I Stay (Or Should I Go?) [2]
Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket, All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket, Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Angst, Autistic Duncan Quagmire, Autistic Klaus Baudelaire, Autistic Quigley Quagmire, Autistic Sunny Baudelaire, Bisexual Violet Baudelaire, F/M, Gay Duncan Quagmire, Gay Klaus Baudelaire, Human Experimentation, Inspired by Stranger Things (TV 2016), M/M, PTSD Fiona Widdershins, PTSD Quigley Quagmire, PTSD Violet Baudelaire, Possession, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, absolutely nobody is alright, also?? we finally get that fun atwq content have fun, everyone's autistic bc i said so but these are the obvious ones, everyone's depressed and traumatized it's great, oh almost forgot we get canons in this one so, slightly less than last time but nothing can stop carmelita now, they are all still allowed to say "fuck"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-10-09 14:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 42
Words: 133,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17408771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midas_touch_of_angst/pseuds/midas_touch_of_angst
Summary: It's been almost a year since the former experiments have gone on the run, and their main focus is finding Violet and Quigley and staying away from the Lab that is still hunting them. But when they realize something strange is going on back in Hawkins, they might have to find themselves returning home to face whatever is arriving before it can spread to the rest of the world.Meanwhile, their separated siblings have their own mission, and their own plans on how to shut down Hawkins Lab for good. But then something strange starts happening to Quigley, something connected to the Upside Down and the Gate he opened, and the one person who might be able to help them may be hiding secrets of her own.The world is turning Upside Down, and if the experiments don't put a stop to it, it could mean the end of everything.The VFD Kids in a Stranger Things AU, rated Teen and Up for violent scenes, kids with no swear filter, and a shitton of angst.Read Part One here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686226/chapters/39131761





	1. Prologue - Storms Pass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHELP IT'S TIME TO POST THIS NOW ISN'T IT.
> 
> Once again, special shoutout to asoue-sideblog on tumblr, who is enabling my horrible ideas and helping me plan out the plot. Love you! :D 
> 
> Also, if you're new here, this is a sequel, and won't make much sense without thee first fic, so here's a link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686226/chapters/39131761

**CHAPTER ONE**

_Prologue - Storms Pass_

 

_April 1963_

 

The girl rushed down the hall, shouldering past the doctors and scientists, who proceeded to completely ignore her, as well as the fact she was struggling to hide her shock and fear. If any of them looked close enough at her to notice her emotions, they would also notice her eyes, and then they would know exactly why she was so nervous. And then she’d get in trouble. She didn’t want that.

She finally made it to the room she had been searching for; it was decorated with a Rainbow on the frame, but she would have known where she was going even without it. She knew this Lab like the back of her hand; she’d been here her entire life. Which meant that she knew that the storm currently raging outside would knock out the security cameras for quite some time.

She swung open the door to the Rainbow Room, rushed in, and slammed it shut.

There were four other people inside. One and Two, sitting on the table, glanced up from their books, barely reacting to her sudden and panicked appearance. Three, from her perch on the cushion she’d dragged in, didn’t even look at her, instead watching flames flicker on her palm. And Five was curled up in the corner, looking shocked and shaken as she entered. He wasn’t quite as used to life as the rest of them were; she remembered Father saying that he’d been a bit spoiled, and to just be patient with him. He’d come around soon.  

The girl stared at them, then she shut her sage-green eyes and _shifted._

She shrank, her clothes suddenly getting very big on her. Her skin turned paler, and her hair dropped from blonde curls to a black bob. And she went from somewhere in her mid-thirties to fifteen.

She looked up, and said, in a shaky voice, “They found Four.”

One and Two instantly leapt to their feet, slamming the books on the table. Three clenched her fist, extinguishing the flames, as she whipped around to stare at her friend. “You’re kidding.”

“I wouldn’t kid about this.” she responded, rolling up her long sleeves. “They finally found him on the streets. He’s hurt, they’ve got him in Solitary until he can move back into his room.”

“Oh my God.” Two said, raising a hand to her mouth, looking about ready to cry. “Oh my God, he’s _alive_?”

“Would’ve thought they’d kill him, for all this trouble they caused him.” Five muttered.

“Shut up, they wouldn’t kill him!” Three glared at Five, before turning back to the girl. “Do you think that means security’ll lax a bit? I wanted to go see that movie about the Birds-”

“Can we see him?” One asked, looking very nervous.

“I… doubt they’ll let us visit him until they can treat him.” the girl said, playing with her hair. “You know he kept getting sick in the head before he ran, and he’s probably still sick now-”

“Come on, Blank Slate!” Two said, using the nickname she was fond of. “That’s our baby brother!”

“My name is Ellington,” the girl said sharply, “He’s _your_ baby brother, I’m not related to him, and if you- if you think I’m going to sneak you out-”

“Yes! Sneak us out!” Three ran over, throwing her arms around Ellington in a hug. “Come on! Let’s do it! Let’s see Four-”

“No! No, no, no!” Ellington pushed her away, shaking her head. “No, you remember what happened last time!”

“What happened last time?” Five asked bitterly.

“We got _caught_ last time.” Two said. “That won’t happen again. Listen.” She turned towards Five. “Tell me if we disappear.” She shut her eyes and waved her hand.

Five raised his eyebrow. “Impressive.” he said. “You’re all gone.”

“See! I can make people think we’re not there.” Two said. “You just have to keep on that uniform One stole for you-”

“Do you have to bring that up all the time?” One groaned.

“-and bring us down the hall, we visit Four, and get back here before the cameras go back on. Simple!” Two finished.

“I…” Ellington sighed. “No. No, you remember what they did last time they caught me using my power to sneak you all out.”

“I can look ahead to make sure nobody’s guarding him.” One volunteered.

“I can set someone on fire.” Three said.

“Please don’t.” Two said.

“I can come with you.” Five said. “If it’ll piss your Dad off.”

“We’re not going to do _anything_ that would piss Father off!” Ellington yelled. “We’re not going!”

“Come on!” Three put her head on Ellington’s shoulder. “Come on, Zero! Ground Zero! Lucky Zero!”

“Stop that.” Ellington said, though she did smile slightly.

“Seriously, though.” Three gave her a pleading look. “It’s _Four._ It’s our Lemony. Can’t we just go visit? Five minutes.”  

Ellington stared at her, and then sighed. “Fine. But it’s all _your_ idea if we get caught, okay?”

“Deal!” Three bounced up, flapping her hands in excitement. “Whoo! We’re gonna see Four!”

“Stay calm, and stay close to Two.” Ellington said, backing up. She focused until she shifted back to her scientist disguise; she hadn’t yet been caught as the blonde doctor, though she was always worried whenever someone looked at her eyes. She hadn’t yet been able to shift those.

As soon as she was in her disguise, she took a deep breath. The group was staying very close to Two, who was watching them all, flicking her hand to make them as invisible as possible, an illusion of nothing hovering over them.

“Okay.” Ellington sighed. “Let’s go see Four.”

She opened the door, peering out. When she saw nobody was out there, she held it open for her fellow experiments, and then she shut the door and started running. They raced as fast as they dared, with Ellington nodding politely to any doctors who passed her. She really hoped that Two could manage to hold an illusion for a few minutes, or else someone might spot them all, and they’d be in deep shit.

When she finally reached the right hallway, she stopped and waited while One shut his eyes and hummed. Then, he said, “Nobody’s guarding. But the door’s locked.”

“No problem.” Three said. “I’ve got a hairpin.”

They turned the bend, and Three ran up ahead.

“How’s she know how to pick a lock?” Five asked, slightly impressed.

“She and Four get into shit all the time.” Two sighed.

“As if you didn’t try to steal the-” One said.

“Shh!” Ellington said, moving up behind Three. “Hurry it up! We don’t have much time, who knows when the cameras could go back on?”

“It’ll be fine.” Three said. She finally got it unlocked, and she pushed open the door.

The second she saw Four, she gasped and ran forwards, suddenly horrified. Two let out a cry and followed her, with a concerned One at her heels. Ellington gasped, and then after Five went in, she brought up the rear and slammed the door shut before shifting back into herself.

Four looked _awful._

“Lemony!” Three gasped, trying to hold him up. He was covered in bruises, and he had a scar on his cheek and up his leg. He was slumped against the wall, not looking conscious. “Lemony! Lem, hey, it’s us! We’re here!”

“Lemony, are you okay?” One asked, looking scared.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, what happened to you out there?” Two was crying.

“Are you sure the people on the streets did that?” Five muttered, but only Ellington heard him. She shot him a glare before she ran to Four, too, kneeling in front of him.

“Lem, hey, hey.” Three was muttering. “Lemony!”

Ellington gasped as Lemony’s eyes fluttered open. “Bea?” he whispered, his voice ragged.

“Lem!” Three was crying now, too. “Lem, we’re all here! Kit, and Jacques, and Ellie, and Olaf!”

“Three.” Ellington warned. Those were their _outside_ names. Though, after Three backed up slightly, she did sigh and reach forwards to pat his hand. “We missed you. And you’re gonna have to come up with something to tell our Associates. Moxie was fucking _furious._ ”

“Language.” One said automatically, and Ellington flinched.

“Fuck off.” Five said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall.

“You should yell ‘language’ at Moxie.” Three laughed slightly. “Ellie said she was cussing up a storm.”

“You…” Lemony sat up slightly, flinching a lot. “You haven’t talked to her?”

“We’ve all been locked under heavy security.” Three admitted. “The only outside kid I’ve been able to talk to is Bertrand, and even he’s allowed in less, he can’t even bring his homework in anymore in case he’s smuggling something in.”

“That’s kinda your fault.” Two said. “They didn’t like that you ran.”

“But you’re here now.” One said. “And that’s what matters. You’re home, you’re safe-”

“No.” Lemony shook his head, tears coming to his eyes. “No, no, I can’t be here-”

“See? He’s still sick.” Ellington sighed. “But you’ll be okay soon! You’re back here, they can-”

“No. No, Ellington, they’re hurting us-”

“Stop that.” Ellington scolded. “Stop it! We’re helping them, and they’re taking care of us!”

“They-”

“Look what happened!” Two added. “Look at you! This is what happens when you go off on your own!”

“Don’t yell at him!” Three shouted. “He’s learned his lesson!”

“Apparently not.” Two huffed. “He’s still saying this stuff.”

“Kit, they’ve _hurt us._ ” Four said, his quiet voice sounding desperate. “When we can’t do something, do something wrong, when-”

“Kids get punished all the time.” Ellington said. “We’re not special, Four! They’re not murdering us and throwing us in the woods, it’s just discipline.”

“Besides, we’re special.” One said quietly. “We get special treatment.”  

“No! They’re lying, they’re-” Four tried to sit up, only to let out a pained scream. He flinched back, and Three caught him.

“You need sleep.” Three said quietly. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“And we need to get back to the Rainbow Room before we get caught.” Ellington added, as she heard a clap of thunder overhead. “The cameras’ll be on soon.”  

“We really did miss you, Lem.” Three said, smiling a bit. “We can catch you up on all our stories-”

“I wanna go.” Four said quietly, curling up a bit. “Get me out, please…”

“You’ll be okay.” Two said. “We’re together now! We’re all here. We’re the Numbers, right? Zero to Five!”

Four didn’t respond, instead curling up more.

“We’ll see you soon, okay? Get some sleep.” Three said. She hesitated, and then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Get well soon.”

“Beatrice-”  

Three slowly laid him against the wall, and then turned towards Ellington. “Ready to go?”

Ellington shifted back into her adult form. “Yeah. See you soon, Four. We are glad you’re back, we missed you a lot.”

She doubted she was the only one who noticed that he started to cry, then, but nobody said anything.

 

_March 1980_

 

Violet heard the door to her bedroom creak open.

She didn’t get up at first, instead groaning a bit, the noise she made muffled both by her pillow and by the heavy rainfall. Then she sat up, rubbing her eyes and glaring at the door.

“No.” she said.

Her brother stood in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, and the other gripping the edge of his pajama shirt. He didn’t look at her, instead staring at the floor, sniffling slightly.

“ _No._ ” Violet said again. “No, you’re too old for this, and I’m tired.”

He stayed put, still staring at the ground and shaking slightly. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, and then he closed it again.

“Klaus-”

A peal of thunder sounded, and Klaus let out a squeal, shrinking slightly as he flinched back, hugging himself tight.

Violet sighed, and once the thunder had quieted, she held out her arms. “ _Fine_.”

Klaus bolted, running and leaping at her, curling up beside her on her bed and burying his head in her nightgown, still shaking and starting to cry.

“Hey, hey…” Violet wrapped her arms around her brother, hugging him tight. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just another storm.”

“This one’s _bad_.” Klaus muttered, barely audible over his cries. “It’s so _bad_!”

“Hey, listen. You’re almost nine.” Violet muttered. “You can’t keep getting scared of storms.” Klaus just whimpered a bit. “Come on, Klaus. Hey, you know how storms work. You told me, remember? You just talked about it for two hours while I fixed the radio.”

“Yeah.”

“You wanna talk about it now?” Klaus shook his head. “Well, Klaus, if you know why storms happen, why are you scared?”

“It’s different.”

“How?”

“It’s…” Klaus seemed to be struggling to find the words. “Loud.”

“It’s not that loud.”  

“It _is_. It hurts!” Klaus mumbled, and as another crack of thunder sounded, he turned his head into Violet’s nightgown again. “Violet, it’s _too loud_!”

Violet hugged her brother tighter, taking a deep breath. Klaus had always come into her room during storms, ever since he could walk, but she’d always assumed it was just the unknown of the storm that scared him. Even when she thought it might be the noise, she’d assumed it was the shock of the thunder, and not the sound itself, that scared her brother.

“Vi, can you… can you make it stop?” Klaus asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Violet laughed slightly. “I don’t think I can make weather stop. Might be a little outside my skillset.”

“Nuh-uh. You could do it.”

“What if we distract you? From the noise?”

“It won’t work.”

“Here. What was that thing you read? About distance and lightning?”

“I don’t wanna talk.”

“Wasn’t it- you count the seconds after you see lightning, and then when you hear the thunder, the storm’s a mile for each second?”

“For every five.”

“Right! Yeah, I’ve got my window right here, let’s look for lightning!”

Violet tried to slide off the bed, but Klaus clutched her and pulled her back. Alright, so he didn’t want to move. Okay. Violet leaned over as far as she could, peering out the window, watching the sky. She smiled. “There’s a lightning!”

“A lightning _bolt_.” Klaus corrected.

“Sure.” Violet was already counting in her head, and after a pause, she counted out loud. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen-”

The thunder roared, and Klaus let out a scream, leaning as far into Violet as he could, hugging her so tight she thought something might break.

“Thirteen seconds!” Violet gasped out, trying to push Klaus slightly so he released his grip. “That’s, uh, two-and-a-half miles, right?”

“Vi, it’s too loud! It’s too loud! Make it _stop_!” Klaus was sobbing now, rocking slightly as he hugged his sister.

Violet took a deep breath, and then hugged him back. “It’ll pass, Klaus. Storms pass.”

“Make it stop!”

Violet sighed, rocking slightly with him. “Hey. What’s that song we got the record for? Last time Mother took us to the music store.”

“Violet-”

“Just answer me, okay?”

“I dunno the name.”

“Don’t you know the song, though?” Violet asked; they loved getting new music, and when Mother had let them buy the record, they’d played it on repeat once they’d gotten it. “You remember the song? We learned it on piano.”

“Violet-”  

 _“Blackbird singing in the dead of night.”_ Violet sang softly, running a hand over her baby brother’s hair. _“Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”_

Klaus sniffled, and Violet rocked him a bit, listening to the rain, seeing a flash of lightning out of the corner of her eye. _“All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.”_

Thunder cracked, and Klaus screamed, somehow gripping his sister tighter, yet shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. She raised her voice, singing as loud as she dared, _“Blackbird singing in the dead of night. Take these sunken eyes and learn to see.”_

The rain continued to pour, and Violet whispered, “Sing it?” Klaus shook his head. “Please?”

Klaus took a deep, shaky breath, and managed to sing slightly, _“A-all your life, y-you were only w-waiting for this moment to be free.”_

He stopped, bawling some more, and Violet continued, _“Blackbird fly, blackbird fly. Into the light of the dark black night.”_

Klaus kept crying, but Violet thought he was shaking less. That was something.

“You can stay in here if you want.” Violet muttered. He always did, she didn’t know why she kept trying to get rid of him.

Klaus nodded, and Violet kept singing.

 

_October 1984_

 

The storm was getting louder, and Klaus was barely holding it together.

There’d been storms over the last year, of course, but never this _bad_. They’d always found somewhere quieter to be, and they usually all slept close to each other anyway, so he never felt alone. But they’d managed to find an empty house for tonight that had separate rooms, and everyone had seemed so excited at the prospect that Klaus hadn’t thought to bring up that he _liked_ being with all of them. And he’d also neglected to bring up that he couldn’t deal with being alone during storms.

_You’re not a kid anymore, Klaus. You’re thirteen. You’re too old for this._

Another clash of thunder, and Klaus curled in on himself, throwing his hands over his ears.

It had taken him quite a while to understand why thunder affected him so much. The closer it got, the louder it got, and in addition to the constant sounds of rain and flashes of lightning, as well as whatever other sounds were roaming the halls at night, it all got a bit… much.

Mother and Father had tried to help him figure out solutions to his overload. Find a quiet place, muffle the sound. Play a record. Try to think of it as music from the clouds.  But really, the only thing that had helped was going to Violet’s room. He’d always done that, always, and she’d hug him and let him spend the night, and do her best to calm him down. That was the only thing that helped.

But now she was gone.

_No, no, she’s not gone. She’ll find us. She promised. She said she would…_

When more thunder sounded, Klaus slowly crawled out of the bed, scrambling to grab his glasses. Duncan and Isadora had wanted to sleep on the couch downstairs, he’d go down there. Duncan was very sensitive to overstimulation, too; maybe he’d be awake, maybe they could get through it together.

Klaus stopped walking only halfway across the room, though.

Cause he could hear crying from the blanket fort.

He approached the corner of the room, where two blankets had been tied to cover the space inbetween two sidetables. Klaus knelt down outside it, and then, hesitantly, he pushed aside the blanket cover.

Sunny sat up sharply, staring at him in an almost guilty way before reaching to wipe her eyes with her sleeve.

“Sunny?” Klaus asked carefully, glancing down at the pillow she’d been sitting on. “Are you okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” she muttered.

Klaus bit his lip. “That didn’t sound okay.”

“Bene.” Sunny huffed. _“I’m fine!”_

“Sunny-”

Thunder cracked, and as Klaus flinched, holding back tears, he heard Sunny let out a small scream. He immediately drew his attention to her, as she curled up and breathed heavily.

“Sunny, are you-” Klaus hesitated. “Are you scared of the thunder?”

“No!”

Klaus smiled a bit. “Sun, it’s- it’s okay. I’m-” He hesitated. “I don’t quite like it much, either.”

“Scemo.” Sunny muttered. _“It’s stupid.”_

“No! It’s not!” Klaus pushed aside a blanket, picking up the toddler, even as she let out a cry of protest. “Everyone’s scared of things. I don’t like thunder or- or fire, obviously, but Isadora doesn’t like small spaces, and Duncan doesn’t like driving. Fiona doesn’t like octopi, and Carmelita- well, I mean, she doesn’t like getting dirty, does she?”

Sunny giggled slightly, but the giggle turned to a whimper as the thunder grew louder.

Klaus sighed, and carried his sister back to the bed, sitting down and placing her on his lap, letting her curl up against him. He kept his arms around her, rocking slightly.

“Thunder’s not so bad. Did I tell you wh-where it comes from?”

“Ye.”

“Oh. Well, do you want to-”

Thunder clapped, and Klaus wasn’t sure if the house was shaking or if it was just his imagination. Sunny screamed, and Klaus really, really wanted to cry, but his sister was right there, and that wouldn’t cheer her up at all.

So Klaus did the first thing he could think of; he hugged Sunny close, and shut his eyes.

_“Blackbird singing in the dead of night…”_

Sunny quieted, surprised.

_“Take these broken wings and learn to fly…”_

Klaus could barely remember the song; it was from an old record that Violet used to love. He’d only learned it on piano because she liked it so much; he wondered if he could still play it.

_“All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.”_

He was probably getting the notes wrong, and his singing wasn’t great, but that was okay, because when the thunder clapped again, Sunny didn’t scream or cry, and Klaus was starting to feel less scared.

_“You were only waiting for this moment to arise…”_

Sunny took a deep breath, and then said something that made Klaus want to cry  some more.

“Vi.”

Klaus stared at the window, watching as lightning struck somewhere far away. “Maybe she’ll come tomorrow. She’ll come for us soon.”

“Promesa?” _“Promise?”_

“Yeah.” Klaus nodded. “She won’t leave us. She’ll be here soon.”

He started singing again, and Sunny curled up against him, and they listened to the rain pour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some important notes: 
> 
> \- If you missed it in the opening notes, here's a link to the first fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686226/chapters/39131761 
> 
> \- A few chapters will be playing with timelines a bit- flashing forwards to the past and then flashing back to the present. However, the prologue is the only one that'll include a flashback to the first six experiments. Most of the other flashbacks will just be establishing things that happened inbetween fics. 
> 
> \- This is very much an adaptation of Season Two of Stranger Things, so a lot of its plot will filter its way in, though I should note that the "Lost Sister" storyline is basically a complete reverse of that ep lol 
> 
> \- While this might not have as much graphic angst as Part One, it is NOT going to be an entirely happy ride. Be prepared. :D 
> 
> \- Like the last fic, the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" tag is for scenes of and references to violence, not any actual gore, which I suck at writing. Any possible trigger warnings will be listed at the top of each chapter. 
> 
> \- Thank you for reading! Love you all, and thank you SO MUCH for your lovely comments on the first fic! 
> 
> ~ Midas


	2. The Gang is On the Lam

**CHAPTER TWO**

_The Gang is On the Lam_

 

The employee at the counter barely glanced up from her magazine. “Can I help you?”

The teen girl bit her lip, tapping her foot slightly. “Yeah. Uh, you see… my, uh, Mom was gonna come with me, but she… she can’t get out of bed, she’s gonna have a baby and-”

“What do you want, kid?”  

The teen sucked in a breath. _Okay. Non-sympathetic. Got it._ “I, uh, just started my first period, and I don’t know what box I’m supposed to get.”

The woman at the counter groaned, finally putting the magazine down. “Don’t you have a sister or something?”

“No, just me and Mom and my future sibling.” the teen said awkwardly, playing with her hair. “See, Dad, um, died in an accident a-at work-”

“God, kid, fuck it. What size do you need?”

The teen opened her mouth, about to come up with some stuttering explanation of how she didn’t know because nobody ever taught her about this sort of stuff, only to glance over the worker’s shoulder, at the shelves behind the desk. An older girl with pointed glasses had moved over, looking as if she were perusing the snack bags. But the teen knew better.

“Kid? What size?”

The teen looked back, forcing a smile on her face. “Size what?”

The employee leaned back, groaned, and the teen smiled and flicked her hand. After a second, the woman yawned. She opened her mouth to say something more, but instead she leaned back in her chair, suddenly asleep.

The teen grinned, and then leapt behind the counter. “Cameras off?”

“You need to have a better story, Isadora.” Fiona said, moving over to join her. She pushed a strand of hair that had fallen from her braid out of her eyes, pulling up her sweater sleeve slightly; the fabric, while it did well to hide her tattoo, kept rolling down onto her hands.

“Hey, it takes up a lot of time. That’s what we need.” Isadora said, pushing up her headband slightly and starting to work the cash register. She was feeling a bit warm, even for the chilly Ohio air, probably due to the fact she was wearing two jackets at the same time; she wanted her bag as empty as possible in case she needed to get anything else out of the store.

“Nobody just spills their tragic past to the woman at the counter.”

“Well, I do.” Isadora shrugged. She finally managed to pry open the cash register. “How much do we need?”

Fiona grabbed a handful of cash. “Eh, this should cover it.”

Isadora smirked. “This is fun.”

“It’s not fun, it’s necessary.”

“A little fun.”

“Maybe.”

At that, Duncan raced out from an aisle, looking very nervous. “Fiona! I got food, is there anything else?” He was bouncing his foot and glancing around; he didn’t like splitting up for long, Isadora knew. He also kept pushing his bangs out of his face- she could probably cut those for him next time they were safe.

“Well, let’s see…” Fiona considered. “Klaus and Sunny are getting lighters and new shoes, Carmelita’s getting shampoo and toothpaste-”

“Carmelita’s definitely not getting anything useful.” Duncan said.

“Fuck yeah I am, cakesniffer!” Carmelita shouted, running out of an aisle herself. “I actually got good stuff this time!” She tossed her hair over her shoulder; she liked to try different braid styles every other town, and she shivered slightly in her outfit, which was not practical for the cold weather but looked fashionable so she refused to wear anything more fitting.

“Is it more makeup?” Duncan asked, glaring.

“Uh, I’ve _got_ makeup.” Carmelita rolled her eyes. “But I did get our shampoo and toothpaste, _as well as_ some clothes that actually look good!”

“We don’t care about looking good, Mel.” Isadora said, rolling her eyes. “We care about not standing out.”

“Sucks to be you, then.”

“I still don’t think you quite grasp this ‘on the run’ thing.” Fiona joked, before placing a hand onto the counter and vaulting herself over it.

“Showoff.” Isadora muttered, smirking.

“Where’s Klaus?” Duncan asked, shouldering his bag.

“Here!”

“Ee!”

Klaus ran out, tossing a bag at Duncan with one hand and holding Sunny with the other. “Got it! Let’s get out of here!”

“We don’t need to _rush_.” Carmelita said. “Izzy’s just knocked out this chick, so we’ve got _tons_ of time.”

“But I don’t know how long the cameras will be off for. We don’t wanna be spotted.” Klaus said nervously.

“We’ll be _fine_.” Carmelita sighed.

“Klaus is right, we should go.” Fiona said, glancing behind her. “We’ve probably got a bit of a drive ahead of us.”

“Where are we going now?” Duncan asked, wandering over to a newspaper stand and picking up one of the papers, flipping through it with interest. He liked to collect papers from each town, when they could fit into his bag.

“We’re a bit too close to Indiana for comfort,” Fiona said, moving to a shelf and grabbing a bag of chips, “So we’re going to be heading into West Virginia, unless we have to change course for any reason. Hopefully we can get to Florida before snow starts coming in.”

“You think we’ll be safe there?” Isadora asked.

“We’re not safe anywhere.” Fiona said. “But the South’s better in the Winter, we won’t have to worry about freezing to death, for the most part.”

“Yeah, I’d rather not freeze to death.” Carmelita agreed.

Klaus bit his lip. He glanced down at Sunny, who nodded at him encouragingly. “Uh, are you- are you sure you wanna go so far south?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine.” Fiona said.

“We can try to break into DisneyWorld.” Carmelita suggested.

“Yeah, no.” Fiona said.

“ _Why not?_ ”

“I just…” Klaus paused. “I don’t like being too far from Indiana, in case… in case Violet’s still there.”

There was the awkward pause he expected, and then Isadora came forwards, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “I-I get it. I know you want to be near the last place you saw her.”

“But being near Hawkins means being near the Lab.” Fiona reminded him. “And they’ll kill us, you know they will.”

“They might…” Klaus gripped onto Sunny tighter.  

“Uh, hey?” Duncan called.

They turned towards him, seeing quickly that he’d flipped to the middle of the newspaper. “What?” Isadora asked.

“I think I just-”

Duncan was interrupted by the sound of police sirens outside.

“Son of a bitch!” Fiona cursed.

“How did they find us?” Klaus asked.

“Maybe someone else is in the store?” Isadora suggested.

“Or maybe someone spotted the stolen van.” Carmelita noted.

They all looked at each other, and then Klaus said, “Well, let’s go out the back. I’ll take care of it.”

“Klaus, you don’t have to-” Duncan began.

“I’ll do it, it’s fine.” Klaus said. He put Sunny on the ground, grabbing her small hand. “Ready to run, Sunny?”

“Ye!”

They took off towards the back of the store, with Fiona rushing aheads to peer through the window. “They’re behind the building.” she said. “Just one car, there’s two men inside.”

“We’ll have to make a break for the van,” Duncan said, “And there’ll probably be police there, too.”

“Not a problem.” Klaus said, sounding quiet. He took Fiona’s place by the window, still holding hands with Sunny, who stumbled along after him. He watched the car and then, carefully, he raised a hand and pushed the air.

The car suddenly skidded across the road, sliding a good few feet.

“Go, go, go!” Fiona threw open the door, and they all ran. Sunny was going a bit too slow, so Duncan knelt down and lifted her as Klaus brought up the rear, flicking his hand and watching one of the tires explode.

Hopefully they hadn’t noticed him do that, or they might get a bit suspicious of the fact he could move things with his mind.

Klaus raced to the front of the group just as they turned a bend- no easy feat, since he sucked at running- and he gave a quick glance to another police car, which had stopped in front of their van.

“Think you can take that?” Fiona asked.

Klaus shut his eyes, focusing on the car itself, trying to imagine every part of it, every piece.

And then he imagined it pushing itself very far away.

The second it started rolling, they ran, and Isadora managed to grab Klaus’s hand and drag him along. Fiona threw open the back doors of the van, and they all clambered inside. She shut them in, then raced to the driver’s seat.  

“Quick question.” Duncan called. “Can our next car have seatbelts?”

“We’ll think about that when we need a new car.” Fiona said, turning the van on. “Besides, do you really wanna be so cramped?”

“I’d like to be alive.”

“You’ll be fine. Isadora, calm him down.”

“Duncan doesn’t like when I do that.” Isadora said.  

“Then don’t use your powers! Just do whatever.”

“Hand me your bag.” Isadora said to Duncan. “I’ll-”

“I’ll be fine.” Duncan said.

Fiona muttered something under her breath, and then she hit the gas.

“Under the speed limit, Fiona!” Klaus called from the corner of the van as they raced down the road, wiping his bloody nose with his sleeve before he took Sunny from Duncan, sitting her on his lap.

“No promises!”

“We’re gonna die.” Duncan said quickly.

“Shut up, cakesniffer, this isn’t the worst car chase we’ve been in.” Carmelita rolled her eyes.

“It’s not like they’re all super pleasant, though!” Duncan yelled.

“No arguing, I’m trying to focus!” Fiona called.

“What’d you find in the newspaper?” Isadora asked, moving closer to her brother.

Duncan reached into his bag, where he’d stuffed it. “I’ll have to pull out the page again, but I think-” They all screamed as Fiona took a sharp turn, causing them to slide  a bit in the back of the van. “Damn it, Fiona, can you not _do that_?”

“Stop backseat driving, I know what I’m doing!”

“Sunny, are you okay?” Klaus asked, holding his sister very close. Sunny nodded, leaning up against him and humming slightly.

“Maybe we should’ve just had Sunny punch a hole in the store wall.” Carmelita said. “Or she coulda flipped the cop cars.”

“No! Sunny’s not gonna overuse her powers like that.” Klaus said.  

“Creo.” Sunny said. _“I could do it, you know, if you want.”_

“No, Sunny,” Isadora sighed, “People might be able to explain away a car going out of control, but they won’t be able to explain a kid who’s barely two years old flipping cars.”

“Dueanni.” Sunny huffed. _“I’m two years, one month and six days old!”_

“Besides, Sunny, your powers can be a bit… difficult to manage.” Klaus reminded her.

“A phrase which here means,” Carmelita said, almost mocking Klaus with her tone, “That you can’t shut it off.”

“She can shut it off!” Klaus said sharply. “She just… has trouble.”

“Tell that to the last van.” Carmelita rolled her eyes.  

“Oh, and who tossed her into the wall?”

“She would’ve been fine, super-strength makes her indestructible.”

“No, it _doesn’t_!” 

“Hey!” Fiona yelled. “If you two don’t stop arguing, I’m going to turn this car around!”

They heard a distant police siren.

“Yeah, you’re not doing that.” Isadora said.

“Guess we’ll have to go faster.” Fiona said.

“Oh, God.” Klaus muttered, bracing himself.

 

The ride ended surprisingly fast, and eventually Fiona parked the car in the middle of the woods somewhere.

“Hopefully nobody driving at night will stop to see if we need assistance.” she said, climbing into the back of the van. “It’ll be cold, but we should sleep here tonight.”

“Sleep in the stolen van the cops are looking for.” Carmelita repeated.

“We’re far enough away.” Fiona said, waving her hand. “Besides, we get checked out, Carmelita, you can just convince them to piss off.”

“True.”

“Alright, Sunshine,” Fiona pulled a map out of her jacket pocket, and passed it to Sunny, “Your turn to pick. Where are we going?”

Sunny shut her eyes for a moment, before looking down at the map and pointing a small finger to a city a few miles away.

“That’ll work.” Fiona shrugged, folding the map up again. “Close enough to where we’re headed.”

Sunny nodded, then leaned up against Klaus so that nobody would notice her nose bleeding slightly.

“I think we have enough blankets that we should be able to be relatively alright tonight.” Isadora said. “Who’s got the blankets again?”

“That’d be me.” Klaus said. “But I’ll have to dig out the shoes I got from the back of the store.”

“Oh, thank God!” Duncan sighed. “Our shoes are _wrecked._ ”

“Yeah, we can finally toss these!” Isadora cheered.

“Well, we might want to leave them in the bags somewhere. Never know when you might need old shoes.” Fiona said. She turned to Duncan, saying, “Weren’t you going to tell us something? Before the cops showed up?”

“Yeah!” Duncan reached into his bag, unfolding the newspaper. “Okay, so, I was skimming this, trying to see local news, and _look_!”

He flipped to an article, and then placed the newspaper on the floor. They all made a circle around it, looking down and also skimming.

“It’s just an article about a meeting of some Herpetological Society.” Klaus said.

“What’s Herper-tology?” Carmelita asked.

“Herpetology is the study of amphibians and reptiles.” Klaus explained.

“Kaa!” Sunny giggled. _“Snakes are cool!”_

“Why’s this important?” Fiona asked.

Duncan pointed to one of the men in the attached photo. “This guy. Look at his name in the caption- first row, second from the left.”

Klaus glanced. “Monty Montgomery.”

“That’s one of Moxie Mallahan’s contacts!” Duncan said excitedly. “He might still be in town, or maybe one of these herpetologists can tell us where he lives, or-”

“Duncan.” Fiona said carefully. “Duncan, now, wait a moment.”

Duncan glanced up at her. “What? We finally found one of them, we can-”  

Fiona shook her head sadly. “Duncan. We’ve gotta get out of town. Even if those policemen didn’t spot us running out of the store, there could be security footage from before when we shut the cameras off, or they could talk to the employee once she wakes up and find out what Isadora looks like. We’re already quite a ways out of town, and if we turn back now, we’ll definitely get spotted. We could get caught.”

“We have a baby who can throw cars, and you can poison people by looking at them.” Duncan said, looking very upset. “We’re not gonna get caught.”

“You never _know_ what could happen.” Fiona argued. “We could get split up, or they could catch us off-guard, or something could happen to-”

“We all know basic self-defense, you made sure of that.” Duncan said. “We’ll be fine.”

“If you get caught, you die.” Fiona said sharply. “I’m not losing any more of you-”

“You didn’t lose any of us!” Duncan shouted. “Quigley and Violet are still alive, they’re just-”

“Duncan. We can’t risk it.”

Klaus glanced at Isadora and Carmelita awkwardly. This fight might go on for a while. Sunny muttered something and covered her ears.

“We need to find Moxie’s friends, they’re the only hope we have of getting the Lab shut down any time soon.” Duncan insisted. “We haven’t heard anything about the Anwhistles, and you won’t let us go to Canada to meet Jacquelyn, so he’s our best bet!”

“He may not even be in town anymore. This meeting was a few days ago.”

“We shouldn’t _hesitate_!”

“Oh, no, you did _not_ just try to pull that.”

“Fiona, don’t you want to finally stop running?”

Fiona leaned back and let out a sigh. “Of course I do. But if we go back, we could get caught, and being on the lam is better than being in the Lab. What do you think they’d do if they got us back? I’d be dead, I’ll tell you that right now. Might kill Carmelita, too, for breaking her deal with them.”  

“Thanks for that.” Carmelita muttered.

“They’d do whatever they wanted to you, Isadora, Klaus and Sunny.” Fiona said. “And the second you don’t cooperate, they beat you, or electrocute you, or toss you in solitary. And if you do something really bad, they’ve got other punishments. Hallucinogenic Drugs. Sleep Deprivation. Sensory Deprivation. Dehydration-”  

“Stop it.” Duncan said.

“You’re scaring Sunny.” Klaus said, hugging his sister tighter as she whimpered slightly.

“And that’s just what they did to _me_.” Fiona snapped. “And not even all of it. Do you want that to happen to you and the people you care about?”

“It already _did_! They got Quigley, and this could be our only hope of finding him!” Duncan said. “If we don’t have to hide, they could come back!”

“We can’t _risk it_!” Fiona said.

Duncan glared at her, taking a slow breath.

After an awkward pause, Carmelita said, “Are you all done? Did you guys get that out of your system?”

“Yes. We’re done.” Fiona snapped.

“Fiona…” Isadora slowly put a hand over Duncan’s. “Listen, maybe… maybe we can take a risk. We’ve been on the run for almost a year-”

“Three-hundred and Forty-Nine Days.” Klaus said.

“-and maybe if we just…” Isadora glanced away, not looking anyone in the eye, “Maybe can finally stop.”

Fiona took a deep breath, staring at her hands. Klaus watched her carefully, slowly hugging Sunny tighter. He wondered if Fiona could even remember a life without being on the run or in the hands of the Lab.

“I…” he said quietly. “I bet if we weren’t on the run, you could actually study mycology, instead of just relying on the occasional library book. Or we could actually go see a movie, or-or enjoy the snow, instead of running from it. Or make other friends.”

“It’d be worse to be in the Lab than on the run for the rest of our lives.” Fiona said. As they all wilted slightly, she continued, “But… no, no, don’t get excited! We’re not going _now_ , but now that we know Monty Montgomery is part of some herpetological society, we can probably look him up in the next town over. Find him somewhere safer. How’s that?”  

They glanced at each other, and finally, Duncan took the newspaper, folded it up, and put it in his bag. “Better than nothing.” he said.

“Better than nothing is all we can ask for.” Fiona said.

“I mean,” Carmelita said, “There’s a lot of things I could ask for. Like a shower. And more makeup. And jewelry.”

“And not having to be afraid of an evil lab trying to kidnap us for our superpowers.” Isadora added.

“And having our siblings with us.” Klaus said.

That definitely killed any remnants of a good mood that might’ve been left.

Sunny bit her lip, and then looked over at the wristwatch on Duncan’s arm, which effectively covered a certain mark from prying eyes. She stared at the time, and then quietly muttered, “Cento,” which probably meant, _“Should we call?”_

“Oh! Yeah.” Klaus said. “It’s almost 7:10.”

Duncan sighed, and said, “Isadora, you have the radio today, yeah?”

“Fiona’s got it.” Isadora said, crossing her arms and leaning up against the wall of the van, still not meeting his gaze.

“Oh! Yeah.” Fiona dug into her bag, finally pulling out the small walkie-talkie. “Hope nobody can track this.”

“You need to stop saying that, it’s scaring the baby.” Carmelita said.

“Audaz!” Sunny yelled. _“You all need to stop using me to stop arguments, I’m not scared!”_

“Toss me the radio.” Klaus said. “I’ll start.”

Fiona handed him the walkie-talkie. Klaus tuned in to the familiar channel, as Duncan scooted closer, also putting his hand over Sunny’s, and Carmelita and Fiona watched with interest. None of them paid much attention to Isadora, who twirled a  strand of her hair and looked into nowhere.

“It’s Day Three-Hundred and Forty-Nine.” Klaus said shakily, turning on the radio. “It’s us again. We stole some more stuff. I feel like Father would be upset about that, but… it’s not like we have a choice. We, uh, have to survive, you know? I… I hope you understand, I hope you’re not mad at us. Please don’t be mad at us- or, if you are, come yell at us yourself.”

Duncan and Fiona laughed slightly at that.

Sunny leaned over into the radio. “Namor.” she said. _“My abilities have gotten pretty cool, but I’d rather show you than tell you about them.”_

“Sunny’s right, we’ll have way more stories to tell you once you’re here.” Klaus said. “We don’t wanna talk for too long, in case someone else tries to use this channel, or you get bored or- well, uh, we still are waiting for you to find us. You- you said you would, and I know you can, but I wish you’d hurry it up a little. Um… talk to you tomorrow.”

Klaus passed the radio to Duncan, and he shot him a grateful smile, before saying, “Hey, Quigley! Did you hear any of that? You know, I always assumed you’d be the one more likely to rob stores as we got older, but I’m getting pretty good at it. Which is probably an issue, but we’ll think about that when we’re safe. Are… you safe? Can you talk to us?”  

He left a pause, and Isadora said quietly, “If he hasn’t talked before, he won’t today.”

“Do you wanna say anything, Isa?”  

“You’ve got the floor, brother dear.” Isadora said.

Duncan hesitated, then said, “We’re hoping to look up someone who can help us in our next town. Hopefully farther from Indiana. Unless you want us to go there? Well, um… I hope you’re nearby, and you can talk to us soon. Maybe you can teleport to us at some point, surprise us. Well, no, don’t surprise us, we might immediately take defensive position and try to kill you.”

“I’d probably poison anyone who surprised us,” Fiona said, “Though if I realized who it was in a few seconds, they’d have time to live.”

“Comforting.” Carmelita said.

Duncan laughed a bit. “I hope you’re okay. You gotta catch up to us, though, because eventually one of us will hit a growth spurt and we’re gonna need to track which one of us ends up tallest.”

“It’ll be me.” Isadora said.

“Well… see you tomorrow.”

Duncan turned the walkie-talkie off, and handed it to Klaus. “You wanna try to fit it in your bag tonight?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Klaus shrugged. He held the radio for quite some time, though, just running his hands over it, as if he was waiting for a call to come in.

None ever did.


	3. Klaus and Sunny have a Chat

**CHAPTER THREE**

_Klaus and Sunny have a Chat_

 

Klaus couldn’t sleep.

He often had trouble with that, really. He didn’t think he’d slept well since sometime before the Fire. And when he did actually fall asleep, the smallest thing could wake him up- which was good when it was something like Sunny crying or someone approaching their hideout, but bad when it was something like Carmelita accidentally kicking a wall in her sleep. Fiona said that being a light sleeper was a good trait for a fugitive to have, which wasn’t as comforting a statement as she’d probably thought it was.

Klaus sat up slightly, grabbing his glasses off the floor. As he started to get up, though, he felt a tiny hand poke his side.

“Kla?”

Klaus glanced down, smiling slightly at his little sister. “Sorry I woke you.” he whispered.

“Desto.” Sunny shrugged, which meant, _“I was already awake.”_

“I was just gonna go look outside for a bit. Wanna come with?”

“Ye.”

Klaus picked up his sister and slowly stepped over his sleeping friends. He really hoped he didn’t wake up Fiona, who was asleep in the front seat but was almost as jumpy as him.

He climbed out the back and then sat in the grass, looking over the woods they’d parked in. Sunny curled up on his lap, humming something and staring at the stars above them. Klaus glanced up at the sky, too. “You wanna hear about constellations, Sunny?”

“Meh.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve already talked to you about those, haven’t I?”

Sunny paused, considering. “Quattor.” _“Four times.”_

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Audite.” Sunny shrugged. _“It’s not a problem. You explain things very well.”_

“Uh, thanks.”

They sat in silence for a while, and then Klaus said, “Do you think Violet’s actually listening to the radio?”

“Ye.” she sounded very certain.

“How would she even know we were talking to her? It’s not like she’d automatically think, ‘oh, yeah, they’ll be on a radio.’”

“Eespi.” Sunny said, which probably meant, _“ESP.”_

“I guess you’re right, Fiona did say that most of us probably have some form of ESP.  Besides, Violet’s probably still connected to us, so maybe those two things combined would give her a sense that we were there, yeah?”

“Ye.”

Klaus bounced his leg slightly. “Sunny… we’re connected, you remember? Me and Violet and Fiona and the Quagmires.”

“Iris.” Sunny nodded. _“Because Isadora empathically connected you in the Rainbow Room on accident. I remember.”_

“So… so we’d know if… something bad happened to Violet, right? We’d _know_ .” Klaus shook slightly. “We’d know. We knew when something happened to Quigley, even if it was really quick for everyone but Isadora- Isadora would know, definitely, she’d feel it. Her power is _feeling things_ , she’d tell us if something happened to her or Quigley, she’d know, she’d tell us-”

“Lenio!” Sunny said, leaning up against her brother. _“Calm down! It’s okay.”_

“Sorry.” Klaus said, wrapping his arms around his sister and rocking a bit. “I’m sorry, I just… I-I just…”

“Perdere.” Sunny whispered, shutting her eyes. _“I miss her, too.”_

“She’s gotta be okay. She’s gotta be.” Klaus whispered. Then, he asked a question that had been bothering him for a long while, but that he refused to ask for the longest time, in case someone told him it was very likely.

“Sunny?”

“Hmm?”

“You don’t think the Lab got her back?”

Sunny was silent.

Klaus took a deep breath, and then said, “Be-because if she killed the Monster, the only Gate back to our world would be the main one, and unless the Lab closed it, she’d have to get out there- unless the temporary portals _weren’t_ the Monster, which is a possibility, and I _hope_ that’s what happened, but you never know. What if she did get caught? They seemed like the people at the Lab were going to- but they might have changed their minds, decided she was useful, especially if she brought Quigley back.”

Sunny sighed, and then said, “Nullus,” which probably meant, _“No, I don’t think so. If the Lab had her, they’d still be hurting her and Quigley, and eventually something really bad would happen and Isadora would feel it.”_

“Are you sure?”

Sunny bit her lip. “Incerta,” she whispered, which meant, _“I can’t be sure of a lot of things.”_

Klaus sighed. “This isn’t a life for you.” he said quietly. “You shouldn’t be on the run through your earliest years. You should be safe and cared for by someone who can actually protect you.”

“Riparare.” _“But I have you.”_

“Sunny, I’m _thirteen._ Yeah, I can throw things with my mind, but only if I concentrate, and it saps my energy a lot. What happens if I get knocked out? What happens to you if you get separated from us? We’ve had so many close calls, it’s a miracle none of us have been split up yet. Sunny, I…” Klaus shut his eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I lost you, too.” Shit, he was crying now. Shit, shit…

Sunny turned around, giving him a hug as best she could. “Stare,” she whispered, as he hugged her and tried to stop his crying, _“I’m not going anywhere. And we didn’t lose Violet. She’s going to find us.”_

“I know she will. She’s Violet. I just… I hope she’s okay. And she’s not alone.”

“Quig?”

“I hope she’s with Quigley, but you never know. I mean… we have Duncan and Isadora, and Fiona, and even Carmelita, and we have each other. We don’t know where she is or who she’s with. And she… she doesn’t have us.” Klaus took a deep breath. “Do you think she misses us?”

“Ye…”

“I… I hope she finds us soon. I… I just want to see her again…”

“Ye.”

Klaus hugged Sunny tighter, and then said, “Hey. Next time we sleep in a library, what books do you want?”

“Darroze.” _“Cookbooks!”_

“What are we gonna use those for?”

“Amet.” Sunny shrugged. _“Fun.”_

“Well, Isadora was asking if we could steal more textbooks, so we’ll see if we can get both of those. I know Carmelita hates when we make her learn things, but we shouldn’t be falling behind in school while on the run, yeah?”

“Ye.”

“Hope Violet’s learning stuff. Though Mother said we were pretty ahead of most people our age, so maybe she’s fine taking a year off.”

Sunny paused, and then whispered, extremely quietly, “Mama.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I miss her, too.” Klaus whispered. “And Father.”

“Dada.”

“Yeah. I… I wish we could talk to them again.” he let out a small laugh. “They’ve got a _lot_ of explaining to do.”

Sunny laughed, too, and then Klaus hugged her some more, and looked up at the sky.

“I just… so much happened to them. And we only know a little bit of it.” Klaus said. “Mother had an entire family we never heard about. We never met Father’s, either. We just assumed they were all dead, but they can’t all be gone. One of her foster siblings was _at the Lab_ \- how did that happen? What actually happened to her Guardian? Did the other numbers actually kill him?”

He reached under his shirt, and pulled out a simple, old locket. He flipped it open, so he and Sunny could look at the photos again. One side had two adults, one of whom  was only barely recognizable as Armstrong Feint, the other whom they assumed was his wife. The other photo was the one they always looked at, though; the photo of the first experiments.

Including their Mother.

“Pariente.” Sunny muttered. _“She looks like you.”_

“I guess.” Klaus shrugged. It was a bit hard to see her, as the photo was very small and she was in the corner. He felt a bit sad looking at the other kids; from what he remembered the doctors saying in the Lab, one of them was gone, two others had run away and never been found, and one of them had decided to stay in the Lab and keep tormenting kids. Violet, Fiona and Carmelita had all seemed scared of him, during the one time Klaus saw him. Though they were also scared of a lot from the Lab.

“Why didn’t Mother tell us any of this?”

“Miedo.” Sunny said. _“She must’ve just been scared. Though I’m not sure of what specifically; there’s a lot to be scared of.”_

“Yeah, I don’t think it was… malicious intent or anything, I just… she and Father both. They should’ve told us more. We would’ve understood. We wouldn’t have been mad at them, even for the fact they temporarily let the Lab take us. Cause they got us back.”

“Ye.”

“They got us back and they… they tried to keep us safe. We didn’t realize… we might’ve been more accepting of the restrictions if they’d have told us what they were for. Or… or maybe we’d just be more reckless, maybe we’d’ve tried to fight the Lab ourselves so Mother and Father would stop worrying.”

“Quesera.” _“Well, there’s no way to know.”_

“Yeah. I just… maybe if her other foster siblings are alive, we can find and ask them about her.”

“Forse.” _“Maybe.”_

“What do you think happened to them?”

Sunny shrugged.

“It’s just… they must’ve known Mother. When she was young. Or even Father. They could tell us so much.”

“Ye.”

“But not unless we find them, you know?”

“Ye.”

“I hope we find Moxie Mallahan soon. Duncan really thinks she can help. And she _definitely_ knew Mother, Duncan said she said so. Although she’s an investigative journalist, she moves around a lot. We might not have time to talk to her. Although if she was friends with Mother, she’d want to meet us, right? Unless they had a bad falling out. Do you think- but it’s been eleven years, you’d think she’d’ve gotten over it. Unless time just made it worse.”

“Kla.”

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m overthinking.” Klaus sighed. “Do you have anything you want to talk about?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Ye.”

“Well. Okay.” Klaus glanced towards the car. “Fiona’ll be awake soon. She likes to drive at night.”

“Ye.”

“So we should probably get back in the car.”

Sunny _hmm_ ed and leaned up against him some more, before muttering, “Leavitt.” _“Can’t we just look at the stars for a bit?”_

Klaus smiled a little, and rested his chin on his sister’s head, which caused her to giggle. “Yeah. For a little bit.”

Sunny let out a sigh, and the two of them stared up at the sky, watching the stars twinkle above him.

 

She waited outside the house, tapping her foot and running a hand over her hair.

_Nothing bad happened to him. He’ll be fine. He’s always fine. He’ll be back once he’s checked things._

Still, he was taking an awfully long time.

_Don’t panic. You don’t want to crowd him. That’s the last thing he needs. Don’t crowd him, don’t show how worried you are. That’ll just make him feel bad. And he’s already under enough stress…_

_Well, as if either of us would be super relaxed._

She jumped, and then breathed a sigh of relief, as the door swung open ahead of her.

“This place is definitely deserted, you were right!” he said, beaming and grabbing her hand to drag her inside. She shut the door behind them, re-locking it with a flick of her wrist, as he continued, “There’s a really big kitchen, and it looks like the air conditioner’s broken so you can have fun with that, and they’ve got a room of books and  shit, and you’re never going to _believe_ what else!”

“Slow down!” she giggled a bit. “We’re only here for a night, don’t get too excited.”

“But this is the _nicest_ place we’ve had for a while! There’s a _shower_ , we don’t have to break into a gym! Leave your coat by the door, I wanna show you, they have a _twin room._ ”

“A twin room?”

“It’s got two beds! We won’t have to take turns on the couch or sleep on the floor or-”

“You really are excited.”

“Obviously! This place is the _best_! I dunno why it’s abandoned.”

“Family’s on vacation, I bet.”

“No, there’s nothing in the fridge.”

“They could’ve cleaned out before they left.”

“No personal belongings that I could see.”

“Maybe they’re trying to sell it and haven’t got any buyers.”

“Well, whatever the reason,” he said, “It’s _great_.”

“It could be a trap.”

“I just ran through the entire freaking house, if there was a trap I would’ve set it off by now. Come on, let me show you!” He held out his hand, and she hesitated for a moment.

She knew this place would be safe for the night, but she was still a bit concerned. It was probably another rental house, or some rich guy’s vacation home, but that could mean anyone could come in at any moment… _no, don’t freak out._ She shouldn’t be that worried. Besides, they were only here for a night, it wouldn’t hurt to let him be a little excited. It was nice to see him smiling, too; genuine happiness was a bit of rarity for them, but hopefully that wouldn’t be the case for much longer.

Hopefully, they’d be safe soon, and they could find their siblings again.

Violet grinned and grabbed her friend’s hand. “Alright, where do you want to start?”

Quigley beamed, and the two of them raced off into the empty house.


	4. Violet and Quigley's Road Trip

**CHAPTER FOUR**

_Violet and Quigley’s Road Trip_

 

_November 1983_

 

Quigley slowly blinked his eyes open, feeling as if he couldn’t move.

He was processing things pretty slowly; he didn’t even notice he was in a cold, creaky bed, or that he was wearing a shirt twice his size and a ripped jacket that was almost too small. Instead of paying that much attention, he shut his eyes, trying to remember where he’d been last. He’d been so cold- so _cold_ \- and he couldn’t remember what happened after he heard the monster screech. The Monster… was it here? Did it kill him? Was this the afterlife? He’d been certain he was about to die. He’d been sick, too. He still felt sick, and as he coughed slightly, he struggled to sit up, feeling hurt and tired and still a little cold. He shook a little, and as he reached up a hand to push his bangs out of his eyes, he fell back onto the bed, not able to keep himself sitting up.

He gasped as he landed, feeling a jolt of pain in his back. _What’s going on? Where am I? What’s-_

He heard a door swing open, and he shut his eyes, suddenly terrified, suddenly not wanting to know who was there, who had him, _where_ he might be…

“Oh my God, you’re awake!”

That… didn’t sound like an adult. It sounded like a girl, maybe his age. Her voice  was a bit familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where…

He felt a hand over his, and he instantly flinched back, throwing his arm out to knock hers back and then covering his face, starting to shake. His arms ached as he moved them, but he didn’t notice until he was already shielding himself, terror coursing through him.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t-” he heard her voice say. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

He hadn’t heard those words in a while, he didn’t think. He stayed still for a moment, then slowly lowered his arms, flinching as he did. He coughed again, and she said, “Stay still. You’re still a bit sick. I would’ve taken you to a hospital, but… we’re kind of both fugitives now.”

Her voice shook slightly. Slowly, Quigley flickered his eyes open, and managed to see her, kneeling at the edge of his bed, brushing a strand of hair out of her face.

Oh.

She looked very young, very scared, and very hurt. She had bruises across her face and on her arm, and her skin was a bit too pale to be healthy. She shook slightly as she talked, and by the time Quigley’s brain could process what was happening enough to make assumptions, he realized that she looked about the same as he did right when he left the Lab.

_Poor girl._

But there was still… something else. While she did seem very, very worried, there was a spark in her eyes, one he didn’t know if he’d had in a while; it took a second to place, but it seemed like some kind of determination, or resilience. Some kind of bravery. Or stubbornness.

Whatever it was, it was nice to see, even if he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Are you alright?” the girl asked.

Quigley hesitated, and then managed to say, “Wh-what happened?”

“The Monster got to you.” the girl said. “But I got you out. It’s dead. And… we’re on the lam.”

Quigley struggled to sit up again.

“No, no, don’t do that- here, can I hold you up?”  

Quigley wasn’t quite sure he wanted to be touched at the moment, but he didn’t want to just stay lying there, so he nodded, and the girl got up slightly and put her arms around him, almost in a side-hug, to help sit him up. He flinched a bit at her touch, but managed to keep himself calm as she wrapped her arm around him.

“You’re Quigley, right?” she asked. “Quigley Quagmire?”

He managed to nod. “How-”

“I, uh, know your siblings. A bit.”

Quigley’s breath caught in his throat. “Are they here-?”

“No. No, I’m sorry, I-” she glanced away from him. “We got separated. They wanted to come find you, but- if I didn’t get them out, they would’ve gotten caught, or died, or- it had to be me, I’m sorry, I-”

She sounded choked up, like she was trying not to cry. Quigley couldn’t act like he wasn’t very alarmed to hear that Duncan and Isadora were not only not here, but had been in a lot of danger, but… it didn’t sound like this girl’s fault. There wouldn’t be any use getting mad.

“If… if it helps,” she said quietly, “They’re with my siblings, too. I… I had to leave them. I really hope they’re okay, I hope they’re not m-mad at me…”

She took a deep breath, struggling to keep herself calm. Quietly, Quigley asked, “Who- who are you?”

She looked over at him and smiled a little. “My name’s Violet Baudelaire. We were… together. In the Rainbow Room.”

“Rainbow Room?”

Violet hesitantly rolled up the sleeve on her sweater- which Quigley now noticed looked too big and a bit dirty- to show him a _007_ on her wrist.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Violet nodded. “They, uh… they took me, too. I was there about a week, I think, but it’s all a bit of a blur. I… our siblings are safe, they broke in to rescue us, but Fiona got them out- at least, I hope she did… but the Lab’s been quite… a lot of things happened. But it’s not gone, so we need to keep running, soon as you’re well enough to move.”

Quigley nodded a bit.

“Oh! You need food! You probably haven’t eaten in forever! Lemme get some stuff, I managed to sneak into the back of a store last night after it closed down. Hope you like peaches.” Violet slowly let go of him, after making sure he was sitting up alright. “Oh, uh, and I, um… once you can move, you might wanna shower or something, I tried to clean you up a bit but I didn’t want to- I didn’t know if it would be okay to- well, I mostly just threw a shirt on you and made sure you weren’t super covered in Upside Down junk. I’ve got our hospital gowns still, I was thinking when you can move we could burn them or something.”

Quigley smiled slightly. “Sounds like fun.” He hesitated, and then asked, “Where are we?”

“Rental house. It’s empty now, but eventually someone will notice it’s being used, so we should leave soon.”

“How safe are we?”

“I think we’re okay for now, but not forever.” Violet said. “We’ll have to keep moving. But don’t worry. I’ll be able to protect you, and we can find our siblings, if they’re…” she paused, her mind clearly somewhere else. Then, she said, “No. No, we’ll definitely find them. And we’ll all be together.”

Quigley shivered slightly. “But… we’re not going back.”

“No.” Violet said, a dead certainty in her voice. “We’re _never_ going back.” She took a breath, then said, “I’ll be back in a minute. We can catch each other up, yeah?  Although you might not want to talk much… well, see you in a sec.”

She ran off, then, and Quigley watched her go.

He stared into nothing for a while, and then shut his eyes, hoping he didn’t cry.

_You’ll find your siblings soon. Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine._

Could he trust this girl? Yes, he thought so. She didn’t seem to be a threat. And if she’d been in the Lab… well, she knew what he’d gone though, didn’t she? She wouldn’t let them take him again.

So, at least he was a little bit safe.

That was more than he’d had for a while.

 

_October 1984_

 

“Violet! Hey, Violet!”

Violet glanced behind her, her hair falling over her shoulders as she turned. “What?” she laughed slightly.

“I got our supplies!” Quigley raced up, sliding across the floor. He dropped a bag at her feet. “Store was closed, so I just popped right in! Got enough food for a few days, and some batteries for you-know-what, _and_ I found this!”

He reached into the bag and pulled out a large leather jacket.

“I know you said you needed a new jacket, and this one’s got _pockets_!” he said excitedly. “And it’s warm enough, I think. What do you think?”

Violet took the jacket, running her hand over it. She allowed herself a smile, and she said, “I think it’s _amazing._ And it doesn’t smell like dumpster trash, which makes it much better than our last set of clothes.” She and Quigley laughed slightly, and then she said, “Thank you. You didn’t need to do that.”

“Of course I did. We gotta look our best for Chicago.” Quigley said brightly.

“Then why are you wearing that?”

Quigley gave her a mock offended lock. “Violet Baudelaire, this is the height of fashion!”

“Your jacket is bigger than you are.”

They laughed for a moment, and then Violet shrugged off her old jacket and slid on the leather one, smiling at the new, heavier feeling. “What do you think?” she asked, faking a pose.

“Pretty.” Quigley said. In a second, his face went a bit red, and he said, “Pretty cool.”

Violet shrugged slightly. “And you don’t think anyone saw you?”

“You showed me how to shut off the security cameras at least five times.” Quigley smiled a bit. “And nobody was inside.”

Violet nodded, before moving to sit at the table, feeling a bit strange as she tried one of the chairs. Most of the places they’d hidden in didn’t have the luxury of a full kitchen, so she’d gotten a bit used to sitting on the floor. Quigley didn’t even attempt to sit on a chair, instead tossing her an apple from his bag, taking one for himself, and then sitting on top of the table.

“How’d you ‘pop in’?” Violet asked.

“Looked through a window. Not that hard.” Quigley smirked.

“And then you popped right back here?”

“Yep. I’m getting better at it! I’m not even that tired.”

“So… you wanna test the two of us again?”

Quigley hesitated. “We don’t have to do that all the time.”

“Quigley,” Violet held out her hand, and after a moment, Quigley took it. “You _need_ to keep practicing. If you can teleport me without effort, maybe you’ll be able to teleport more than one person, or figure out how to get out of chains and locks. The more you try, the better you get.”

“Vi, you know why I…” Quigley flipped the apple in his hand.

“I know the idea of testing your abilities gives you some… bad connotations.” Violet nodded. “It’s the… the same with me. But if we just ignore them, what happens when we need them? What if we catch up with our siblings, and the Lab finds us? I’d want my powers to be ready to fight them-”

“And I’d want to get Duncan and Isadora away from them.” Quigley nodded. They’d had this talk quite a few times before. “And you.”  

She smirked slightly. “I can handle myself.”

“Doesn’t mean I want to leave you anytime soon.”

“Then come on.” Violet gripped a bit harder onto his hand. She glanced at a clock on the wall, then said, “See the time? Why don’t you get those batteries and take us to the upstairs hallway? I left my bag there.”

“Violet, I… it’s not just that. I can teleport alright now, it’s just…” he took a deep breath. “I don’t know what the risks are. None of us do, so I just keep… imagining the worst. What happens if I lose focus? What if I only teleport half of you, or I rip your arm off, or I lose you in the Void, or-”

“Hey.” Violet interrupted. “That won’t happen. I trust you, okay?”

Quigley hesitantly nodded, and then jumped up to grab the batteries from his backpack. When he came back, Violet stood up, rolling back the sleeves slightly on her jacket. He shoved the batteries in a pocket and then held out his arms, and she carefully grabbed them.

“Now, we did this already, so just do it again.” she said. “Upstairs hallway.”

“Upstairs hallway.” he repeated, and he shut his eyes.

In a flash, they were gone. Violet struggled to remain calm in what they’d dubbed the “Void”, the space they remained in inbetween teleporting to and from a place. It was cold, and dark, and she was numbed to any feeling whenever she was there. But Quigley never seemed bothered by it, and like hell she was going to admit she fucking hated it, he’d never practice his abilities with her again.

They emerged into reality again, and Violet gasped for air, stumbling backwards.

“Are you okay?” Quigley asked quickly.

“Yeah, just… you did good.” Violet said. She glanced around. “Nice work. Upstairs hallway.”

“Is this the hall you meant?”

“Yeah. Good job, Quig.” she beamed at him, and then walked to the wall, where she’d dropped her bag a while before. She dug in, saying, “We’ll switch out batteries after this, yeah?”

“Yeah. I mean, I’ll try to help best I can.”

“That’s fair.” Violet smiled a bit. “You stick to gathering supplies, I’ll stick to repairing stuff.”

“And tossing metal around with your mind.”

“That _is_ pretty useful on occasion.” Violet nodded. She finally found it, and pulled it out of the bag, placing it inbetween them.

On the floor was a simple portable radio. After a particularly bad day for both of them, Violet had stolen it from on impulse from a store they’d slept above sometime around their second month on the run, and after some nervous feelings had started to rise in her, she’d practiced some of her extrasensory powers on it, spending almost a whole weekend trying to figure out what she had to do with it. Which led to her discovering its most important usage, the reason they bothered carrying it around with their actual supplies.

“It’s almost 7:10, right?” she said.

“If they’re in our timezone.”

“They’ve been going by Eastern Standard, don’t see why they’d change.”

She put her hands on the radio, and shut her eyes, focusing as hard as she could.

It took quite a lot of focus, really. She had to almost completely shut off the world around her, which was a bit hard for someone who liked to pay attention to everything and tended to focus best while multitasking. But she had to let her mind slip away from the world around her and focus on things she shouldn’t be sensing, focus entirely on her supernatural perception. But she could do it if it meant hearing them.

After a minute, the radio buzzed to life, and she heard his voice.

_“It’s Day Three-Hundred and-”_

“Forty-Nine.” Quigley said along with him.

_“It’s us again. We stole some stuff. I feel like Father would be upset about that, but…  it’s not like we have a choice. We, uh, have to survive, you know?”_

“Of course.” Violet muttered, though she tried very hard to keep her hands on the radio and her mind on her brother.

_“I… I hope you understand, I hope you’re not mad at us.”_

“Never.”

_“Please don’t be mad at us- or, if you are, come yell at us yourself.”_

Violet felt a pang in her chest, and she held back tears. _I want to come. I swear, I do. As soon as I can._

_“Namor.”_

_“Sunny’s right, we’ll have way more stories to tell you once you’re here. We don’t wanna talk for too long, in case someone else tries to use this channel, or you get bored or- well, uh, we’re still waiting for you to find us. You- you said you would, and I know you can, but I wish you’d hurry it up a little.”_

“We’re close, Klaus. We’re so close.” she couldn’t help but say.

_“Um… talk to you tomorrow.”_

She always hated when he said that. She hated when he stopped talking.

Another voice took over, and Quigley perked up. _“Hey, Quigley! Did you hear any of that? You know, I always assumed you’d be the one more likely to rob stores as we got older, but I’m getting pretty good at it. Which is probably an issue, but we’ll think about that when we’re safe.”_

“I’m better at it, five bucks says.” Quigley muttered, and Violet held back a laugh.

_“Are… you safe? Can you talk to us?”_

Quigley tried what they tried all the time, and he put his hands on the radio and said, “I want to. I want to, please listen to me. We’re so close, we’re going to be safe soon. And then we’ll all be together. We just need to get to Chicago.”

As always, it didn’t seem to work. _“We’re hoping to look up someone who can help us in our next town. Hopefully farther from Indiana. Unless you want us to go there? Well, um… I hope you’re nearby, and you can talk to us soon. Maybe you can teleport to us at some point, surprise us. Well, no, don’t surprise us, we might immediately take defensive position and kill you.”_

“As if you could hurt a fly.” Quigley muttered, and then he sighed. “I could get to you if I knew where you were. I get why you don’t tell us, someone could be listening, but-”

_“I hope you’re okay. You gotta catch up to us, though, because eventually one of us will hit a growth spurt and we’re gonna need to track which one of us ends up tallest.”_

“It’ll be me.” Quigley said.

_“Well… see you tomorrow.”_

Quigley deflated slightly, as Violet removed her hands from the radio, letting out a sigh and wiping her nosebleed on her sleeve. “Isadora didn’t say anything.”

“She might’ve been busy.” Violet said carefully glancing down at the radio.

“She hasn’t talked in a while.”

“I’m sure she’s just…” Violet sighed. “It probably hurts. To talk with little hope of an answer.”

“It does.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Quigley stood up. “I think I’m going to get some air, do a perimeter check.”

“Do you want me to-”

“I’ll be fine. Be back in a few minutes.”

Quigley left, then, and Violet stared after him until he was out of sight. Then, slowly, she lifted the radio and hugged it like it was a lifeline. She leaned up against the wall, curling up and starting to sob.

_I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I want to find you, I’m sorry…_

_You shouldn’t be alone._

 

_December 1983_

 

Violet woke up before Quigley, and she slid out from the table she’d been sleeping under to use the bathroom.

She’d thankfully been able to move him after about a week, which was the limit in how long as she liked staying in one place. At first, they’d just moved wherever they could, trying to get as far from Indiana as possible. But after a while, Violet would just shut her eyes and focus long enough, waiting for a hallucination of one of her relatives pointed her in a direction to go towards.

That was probably not a great system of direction, but it was better than nothing. And hopefully they were headed towards Klaus and Sunny.

Right now, they were in an elementary school in Michigan. They’d broken in that night, after the cold had gotten too much for them, and were sleeping in a classroom that Violet had managed to use her powers to lock, so that nobody could walk in and discover them while they were sleeping, should an employee come in early in the morning. But the bathroom was right next door, so she could just duck in and out without much problem.

As she washed her hands, she glanced up at herself in the mirror, flinching at her reflection; that tended to be her normal reaction recently. She sometimes felt like she was still wearing off the shock she’d felt when she’d looked at her reflection for the first time since escaping the Lab, and she’d seen just how many bruises she’d gotten, realizing that that was the last image that her siblings had seen of her. Most of the bruises had faded now, but she had a few new ones from close escapes or hard falls onto the road. She had a few scars, mostly on her sides, and the spots on her stomach where she’d been electrocuted still hurt slightly when she moved too fast. And there was the fact she was much paler than was probably healthy, and she hadn’t eaten anything in the last day or so, as they’d snuck onto a bus to get here and then ran through the streets to try and find some form of shelter once they arrived. They’d run out of food a few days before and had to survive on what they could find; maybe she could raid the cafeteria while she was awake. They had to have stuff that’d last a few days at least, right?

Violet sighed and reached into her bag, pulling out an empty bottle she’d snagged a few towns back and filling it with water, before dumping it onto her head. She flinched at the cold, but until she could find a decent shower, it was the best she could do to clean up slightly. She tried to get some water on her face, too, hoping that might help a little. She also hoped her clothes being a little wet wouldn’t cause problems.

She bet that her hair would be easier to care for if it was short, but she couldn’t bring herself to cut it. That had been one of the things she’d been threatened with in the Lab; they kept telling her they’d chop off her hair if she caused too much problems. Among the several things they’d threatened her with, she supposed that should’ve been the least of her worries, but the thought of her hair being gone still shook her quite a bit.

Maybe she could steal a book or two from the school library. She missed having something to read, something to occupy her time when she wasn’t running. It’d be nice to give to Quigley, too; poor kid could still barely walk, and his only source of distraction from their shitty situation was the two of them talking about literally anything but the Lab.

He seemed nice, Quigley. He didn’t talk much, he still seemed a little in shock, but he’d told her a lot about Duncan and Isadora, and how they’d all been only slightly less sheltered than Violet’s family had been. He talked about his parents, though that would inevitably lead to him crying about the fact they were gone. He told her about how he was mainly interested in cartography, and she was able to distract him from the pain for what was probably several hours just by listening to him go on and on about maps and globes. And when he couldn’t or wouldn’t talk, she’d tell him about her inventions, or her favorite books, or about Klaus and Sunny.

She hadn’t really been able to talk about her parents. Not yet. She did tell him that her Mother had been a number, he deserved to know that much, but she always felt strange talking about her and Father. Like she never knew what was right to say and what was not, or what was a lie and what wasn’t.

Violet shut her eyes, turning the sink off with a flick of her wrist. She waited, feeling the metal in the bathroom first- there was quite a lot of it. Then she felt that eerie calmness, and she turned away from the mirror looked up to see her image of Klaus.

“Where are we going next?” she asked quietly.

“You can’t keep running, Vi.” Klaus said. “They’ll catch up eventually.”

“Quigley can’t fight, and even if he could, we can’t take down the entire Lab by ourselves.” She glanced away. “Besides. We need to find Klaus and Sunny, and Quigley’s siblings, and those girls they were with.”

“They’re alright.”

“Good to know. Still want to find them.”

Klaus sighed. “I told you. Get to the next town, you’ve got three miles to go.”

“And I told you, I want to know why you want me there.”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s not how your abilities work.”

“Then what use are they?”

Her vision of Klaus barely reacted to her voice raising. Instead, he just said, “Next town, three miles up. You’ll find something there.”

“What is-“

Violet cut herself off upon hearing Quigley scream.

She gasped, and the eerie calm was broken, and Klaus vanished. She raced out of the bathroom, throwing her bag over her shoulder and sliding down the hall. She threw open the door, immediately summoning a chair to fly beside her, expecting to have to throw it at somebody.

Instead, she just saw Quigley, still under the table he’d fallen asleep under, sitting up and looking terrified. He had one hand on the ground and one gripping his stomach, breathing hard and staring at nothing. He was shaking uncontrollably, looking like he might burst.

“Quigley!” Violet let the chair crashed to the floor and raced forwards, dropping to her knees and crawling in front of him, careful not to touch him, in case that just made it worse. “Quigley!”

Quigley suddenly snapped back to reality, his eyes darting towards her. He sat, breathing raggedly, for a few moments, and then he let out a cry and, to her shock, threw his arms around her and sobbed into her jacket.

“Oh!” Violet gasped, surprised. “Quigley, Quigley, hey. Hey, what’s-“

“Don’t leave me!” Quigley managed to say. “Don’t leave! Please don’t leave!”

“Hey, hey.” Violet slowly hugged him a bit tighter. “Hey, I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here, okay?”

“I-I woke up, and you weren’t here, and I-I couldn’t remember- remember where I was, and I thought I was back _there_ and… and then everything went- and I thought I’d gone Upside Down again, and- and everything was dark and cold and I- and… and I…”

“You’re okay. You’re okay now.” Violet said, knowing that this was far from true. They wouldn’t be _okay_ until the Lab was gone and they had their siblings back.

“Violet, I-It was awful! It was _horrible_ , I thought I was back there…”

“You’re here. You’re right here. Quigley, look at me, okay?” Violet pulled away slightly, waiting until he looked up at her. She moved a hand to his face, gently touching it, making sure he focused on her. “Look at me. I’m going to protect you, okay? You’re not going back to the Upside Down, and you’re not going back to the Lab. Everything’s going to be okay very soon.”

“Violet, I-“

“Everything’s going to be okay. Can you say that?”

Quigley stumbled. “E-Everything’s going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry I left.”

“N-no, it’s not your fault! I just- I used to share a room with-” Quigley shut his eyes, trying to hold back tears. “With my siblings, and-and the only time I’ve slept alone was when I was- was in the- Violet, I _can’t_ go _back_ there.”

“You’re not. You’re never going back, not as long as I’m alive, okay? None of us are ever going back.”

Quigley shook slightly, and very hesitantly, Violet pulled him into another gentle hug.

“Everything’s going to be okay.” she said again.

It had to be. It had to be okay soon.

 

_October 1984_

 

Quigley sat on the porch of the house, bouncing his leg and staring into the sky.

He didn’t want to think the worst, he really didn’t. Isadora was probably just busy. Or tired. Or wasn’t good with words. She really only was good with words when she was using her poetry, and she probably was having trouble coming up with poems for the situation. That was probably it. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk to him. Or that she was mad at him. Or that she had… given up on him.

He groaned and leaned back, flopping onto the porch behind him.

It’d been over a year for him. For Violet, it was only day three-hundred and forty-nine. But he’d been captured August Tenth. August Tenth, when their car had been followed and crashed. When his parents had been killed. When his abilities had kicked in. When the Lab got to him.

It was October Twenty-Ninth. So for him, it was Day Four-Hundred and Forty-Seven. Four-Hundred and Forty-Seven Days since he’d seen his parents, since he’d had a normal life. Since he’d been truly safe. Since he’d seen his siblings, and not through a flickering image or wall of slime.

He wondered if Duncan and Isadora felt this lost.

He opened his eyes, glancing up at the dark sky. And then he stared harder.

There were some kind of… specks. Specks of dust or something, floating around in the air. Quigley hesitantly sat up, staring at the floating specks. He reached out to touch one, one that happened to fall closer to him, only to jump when his hand went right through it.

He turned towards the door, calling, hoping she was close enough to hear him, “Violet? Violet, are you seeing-”  

He turned back around, and suddenly the world was very cold.

Quigley froze for a moment, and then he blinked, and the world was Upside Down.

He jumped to his feet, stumbling off the deck, which was now suddenly crumbling and covered in mold. The specks of dust flew around him, which he now recognized as bits of ripped webbing. He stumbled over the ground, which was wet and covered in slime. Any of the colors outside had changed to shades of dark blue and black, and all the plants looked long dead.

_Oh no, oh no…_

He heard a crash of thunder, and he jumped, staring up at the sky. Clouds billowed across the horizon, flashing red, brightly shining against the blue. Quigley felt paralyzed, standing in place and staring up at the sky. There was… something there. Something in the sky.

Something _evil_.

And it was watching him.

“Quigley!”

Quigley jumped, whipping around, and the world was okay again.

Violet was standing at the edge of the porch, staring at him in fear.

“Quigley, what happened?”

Quigley glanced back to the sky- cloudless, a waxing moon above them, more black than blue and red. Then he turned back towards Violet, unable to hide his shivering.

Violet ran down, getting closer to him. “Quigley? Did it happen again?”

“I… I thought…” Quigley hugged himself, not meeting Violet’s eyes. “It’s nothing. I-”

“Quigley, if it happened again, that’s twice this _month_.”

“It’s _fine_!” Quigley felt bad the second he snapped at her, especially since he realized, as he finally looked at her face, that her eyes were a bit red.

They were frozen for a moment, and then Violet said, “Please. Please just tell me.”

Quigley bit his lip. “Okay. Yeah. But it doesn’t matter-”

“Quigley-”

“It’ll all stop when we’re safe.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“You said it’s just flashbacks, right?” Quigley hugged himself a bit tighter. “So it’s not gonna hurt me.”

“Quigley, seriously, if you want to talk about it-”

“We just need to hurry up and find our siblings.”  Quigley said. “We’ll all be safe once we’re together. And you’re pretty sure we can’t be together-”

“Until we find her.” Violet nodded, sounding a bit… upset? “We won’t be safe until she helps us, I’m sure.”

“And you’re sure she’s in Chicago?”

“Yes, but-”

“And you _really_ think she’ll be able to help us?”

“Why else would we be going there?” Violet raised her voice slightly, frustration building. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath, before saying, “You didn’t throw up?”

“No. Just… felt… it doesn’t matter.”

Violet bit her lip, and then said, “Look, I know you want to hurry this up. I do, too. I want my siblings, too. But I just… I don’t think I’ll be able to find them until we find her. She might be our only hope of stopping the Lab… and finding out the truth about our parents.”

“And your ESP’s being a bitch about picking our siblings up on the way, I know.” Quigley said. “So let’s just forget all of this and get some sleep so we can leave early.”

“Quigley…” Violet paused. “That’s twice this month. It’s starting to get worrying.”  

Quigley took a breath. “Look, once the Lab’s shut down, we’ll be able to deal with all of… this. Once they’re gone, none of this will ever happen again.”

“Well…” Violet said quietly. “Let’s just hope that Kit Snicket hasn’t left Chicago.”

They nodded, and went back inside, and Quigley tried to pretend he hadn’t just temporarily returned to the Upside Down.


	5. Hawkins is in a bit of a Jam

**CHAPTER FIVE**

_Hawkins is in a bit of a Jam_

 

Fiona parked the car in the woods again, and then climbed into the back of the van, glancing around at the other teens.

When they’d started their life on the run, they’d tended to sleep as far apart as possible, a bit uncomfortable with the fact that privacy was now a luxury they only got on occasion. But they’d gotten a bit used to each other over the year- partly due to necessity, since even with each of them carrying a bag, they would sometimes only have minimal blankets, so they had to learn how to share. Right now, Duncan, Isadora, Klaus and Sunny were very close to each other, a large blanket that Carmelita had managed to convince a fabric store employee to give to her spread over them. Sunny was curled up against her brother, her eyes fluttering slightly. Carmelita was just beside them, having opted to stay awake late to do some journaling and fallen asleep on top of a notebook she’d acquired a few months back. Fiona sighed and fiddled with the edge of her glove, wondering if she should let them sleep a bit longer. It wasn’t like they were in a rush. Maybe she could just wake up two.

She moved over to Carmelita, shaking her until she let out a groan. “Hey.” she said. “Wanna come into town with me? We need to scan the area, you know?”

“Whatever.”

“Great. Five minutes.”

“Uuuuuugh.”

Fiona smiled slightly, and then moved over to Duncan- he was the closest to a morning person of the team, so he’d be the least bothered to be awoken so early.

She shook him a bit, and when he muttered something, she said, “Mind keeping watch? Carmelita and I are heading to town.”

“Sure.” he muttered.

Fiona stepped over her sleeping friends and grabbed her bag from the corner, slinging it over her shoulder as Carmelita grumpily sat up and ran a brush through her hair. She’d probably take more than five minutes to get ready, but it wasn’t as if they were in a hurry today, so she could wait a bit.

Fiona glanced towards Duncan as he sat up, too, pushing a strand of hair out of her face and wondering if maybe she should apologize for something. She knew he wanted to find Mallahan’s friends, he was _convinced_ this woman could help them shut down the Lab. But he didn’t _get it._ He’d been in the Lab for only an hour or so, only known the basics of what they did there. He didn’t experience it. He didn’t know how horrible it could be, how hellish. Really, most of them didn’t, it was just Fiona and Carmelita, and the latter understandably didn’t talk about her past much.

And, well, Fiona wasn’t quite sure Duncan understood the full gravity of their situation. She knew he hated being on the run- it made sense, he’d had a comfortable life up until last year, he wasn’t used to all of this bullshit- but they couldn’t rush the takedown of the Lab. It was government-run, meaning it was government-protected. Even if this Mallahan girl could get enough incriminating evidence, Fiona seriously doubted she’d be able to get it widespread enough for a shutdown. More likely she’d get killed for her efforts.

Not that she was going to scare Duncan more by telling him that.

She eventually decided to just not mention the argument and hope he forgot about it. If town was safe enough, they could stop by the Library, or dig out a phonebook. They could find that Herpetological Society thing, and maybe try and contact this Montgomery person. See what he could do. But she wasn’t just going to automatically trust him; she’d have to be ready at a moment’s notice for any kind of double-cross. If they found this guy, she’d probably give Klaus and Sunny the head’s up on being on guard, too. They were the ones with offensive powers, while Carmelita’s and Isadora’s could arguably be considered defensive. Duncan’s could only barely be used as a weapon; he’d said that once he helped Isadora and Klaus relive a memory, but though they tried very hard over the last year, he hadn’t been able to do it again. Still, reading someone’s thoughts and occasionally memories was definitely a good way to catch someone off-guard, he could use that if necessary.

She knew Duncan and Klaus didn’t quite like using their abilities against other people. But what choice did they have? They were all on the run, from their own government. And if they got caught… well, nothing good would come of that.

“Alright, let’s go.” Carmelita said, and Fiona snapped out of her thoughts.

“Right.” she said, adjusting her glasses. “Into town.”

 

“It seems normal. Where are we again?” Carmelita asked.

Fiona gave her an annoyed look. They’d wandered down the streets for a bit, before ducking into a convenience store. A news station was playing on a television in the corner, while only a few people moved between the aisles.

“We’re in Ohio, that’s all we need to know.” Fiona said. “Remember, we’re not… ‘buying’ anything. Just checking everything out.”

“But _Fi_ , they’ve got slap bracelets!”

“You’ve got, like, twelve.”

“They’re so pretty!”

“No.”

“You suck.”

“You suck.”

“Can I at least go look at headbands?”

“No, wait a moment.” Fiona wandered over to the floor, where someone had tossed a newspaper. She flipped it, scanning the front page. Nothing interesting. “Let’s go over this, make sure nothing stands out.”

“Uuuugh, we do that in every town, and it’s never important.”

“If I hadn’t read that paper describing the Baudelaires’ adoption, you’d all be in the Lab right now.” Fiona said. “We read.”

“That’ll take _forever_ , I wanna look at headbands!”

“Then just skim with me.” Fiona said. “Just look for keywords.”

“What keywords?”

“Baudelaire, Quagmire, Widdershins, Spats, Hawkins, Department of Energy… probably Snicket, too, now that I think of it…”

They heard a voice behind them. “Sorry, did you say Hawkins?”

They jumped, and Carmelita instinctively grabbed onto Fiona’s arm. Fiona turned slightly, seeing a man behind them; she vaguely remembered spotting him looking at the greeting card rack earlier, but he hadn’t seemed threatening then.

“What about it?” Fiona asked coldly.

“Hawkins, Indiana?”

“Um.” Carmelita smiled a bit, and Fiona could tell she was trying to let her supernatural charm take control. “Why do you want to know?”

The man stared for an instant, and then said, “My cousin just had to move in with us because something weird’s going on there.”

Fiona felt a chill. “Something weird? Like what?”

“Yeah, tell us what.” Carmelita ordered.

“Well, the crops are all dying. Some weird virus or something is killing them.” the man said.

“That’s all-?”

“Or someone’s sabotaging crops. Either way, my cousin’s pumpkins were all decaying and breaking down. Apparently it’s happening to every farm over there.”

Fiona sighed. “Well, we’re not farmers, so I don’t see-”

Carmelita held up a hand to silence her, suddenly looking a bit interested. “What _exactly_ did they look like?”

“All charred and black.” he said.  “And they were collapsing, like they’d been hollowed out. My cousin thought that they were sabotaged, but he couldn’t be sure that… there was also some strange mold around the pumpkins, and even a bit on the trees.”

“A strange mold?” Carmelita asked. Fiona got a bit nervous at seeing how tense she looked. “What’d it look like?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen it.”

Carmelita paused, and then said, “Thank you, sir, you can forget we exist now.”

The man promptly turned and walked away.

“First of all, you’re eerily good at persuasion, and I didn’t even have to ask you to do it this time.” Fiona noted.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t ever do that to me or I’ll turn your blood to cyanide.”

“Chill out, Fi, you know it takes way more effort to do shit to you.”

“Secondly…” Fiona carefully dragged Carmelita into a corner, lowering her voice. “Do you think that’s the Lab?”

“Maybe.” Carmelita shrugged, looking very uncomfortable.

“Can’t see why they’d want to poison crops. They wouldn’t want the town shut down, people would just get suspicious of them being in the middle of nowhere-”

“You-you don’t think it…” Carmelita looked a bit nervous, tugging a bit on her braid.

“Another experiment is a possibility, but they wouldn’t send them out to test in the world, especially after we fucked up everything else for them, they’d keep any other numbers under _heavy_ lock and key-”

“Or!” Carmelita interrupted, struggling to keep quiet. “What if it’s… the Monster?”

Fiona froze up slightly. “What?”

“I mean, that temporary gate it made looked pretty gross. And when Duncan described the flashes he got from Quigley’s mind, the Upside-Down was covered in mold, right?”

“I… hadn’t even thought about that.” Fiona admitted. “It just… that whole ‘other-dimension’ nonsense seems like a fever dream, or a hallucination or something. And… wouldn’t the Lab close that Gate?”

“They needed Violet for that, and she bailed, remember?”

“But she had to have killed the Monster, right? She was controlling it-”

“Unless it killed her first, and that’s why she hasn’t found her siblings.”

Fiona took a sharp breath. “Yeah, don’t say that in front of the others.”

“Wasn’t going to, they’d be more insufferable than they already are.”

“We can’t… know it’s the Upside-Down.” Fiona said. “And if it is… you know, maybe that’s good. Maybe it’ll take over the Lab, or the government’ll get pissed at it and shut the place down.”

“Or maybe the Monster’ll escape Hawkins and kill us all.” Carmelita said.

“You’re just a bundle of joy today.”

“I am _always_ a bundle of joy.”

“Look…” Fiona paused, glancing at the paper. “If we tell the others about this, they’ll want to go back and find out-”

“Hell no!”

“Exactly. So just… we’ll figure this out, okay? Make sure it’s nothing that can hurt us. And just don’t tell them, not until we have more facts.”

“I could call that guy back and drill him some more.”

“Too suspicious.”

“Could find his Cousin.”

“Yeah, just track down one person in this whole town- fuck, listen. We’ll figure something out. Okay? Maybe edge a bit towards Hawkins, see local newspapers-”

“Duncan’ll collect those.”

“We’ll just have to go through them before he does.”

“Gonna be hard.”

“Look. We can’t just let this slide, but if this is just some dumb farming sabotage, we don’t want to have to throw ourselves into Hawkins if we don’t have to.” Fiona said. “We get a little closer, okay? Tell the kids we have an unexpected change of route.”

“They won’t be happy.”

“They’ll live, that’s what matters.” Fiona paused, and then said, “Is this okay with you?”

“Sure, I love lying.”

“The Hawkins part. If… if we have to go back-”

“Look.” Carmelita crossed her arms, glancing at the ground. “Chances are this is bullshit. But if it’s not… I’d rather know than get caught by surprise. Besides,” she smiled slightly, “You can kill anyone who looks at you funny, I don’t have to be scared so long as you don’t get sick of me.”

“Well,” Fiona smiled slightly. “Don’t turn us into the Lab again and I won’t get sick of you.”

“That was _one time_.”

“One time that was premeditated as fuck.”

“I thought we moved past this.”

“We did. Just… let’s get some food and get back to the van.”

“Maybe we can find a hotel this time?” Carmelita asked.

“We’ll drive a bit closer to Hawkins. _Maybe_ there’ll be an affordable hotel there.”

“Could talk someone into letting us stay for free.”

“Don’t waste your energy.” Fiona sighed. “If something’s going on in Hawkins that we need to stop, you’ll need it.”

“Well… let’s hope it’s just some bullshit, then.” Carmelita shrugged. Then, she added, “Sooo… headbands?”

“You have two minutes.”

Carmelita smiled, flipped her off, and then skipped away.

 

“Do you think they’ll be back soon?” Isadora asked.

They’d all gotten up, and Sunny was now flipping through a book, muttering to herself, while Klaus and Duncan had a newspaper out, cutting out interesting articles to stick into their commonplace books. Duncan had some idea that it’d be fun to show Quigley and Violet where they’d been and what had happened once they got back together. Isadora wasn’t entirely into it, but she did write a few extra poems whenever she got bored and she had nothing to do but hang out with the others.

“I sure hope so. If not, we’ll have to assume the worst and go looking for them.” Duncan said, as he finished cutting out an article on some homicide from two towns before.

“Worst comes to worst and someone comes after us,” Klaus said, “We can always try that special attack Sunny suggested.”

“Sunny’s ‘special attack suggestion,’” Isadora said sharply, “Is you throwing her at any opponents.”

“Yeet.” Sunny giggled.

“It won’t come to that. Fiona and Carmelita are probably the safest of us.” Duncan said. “Fiona can kill people by looking at them, and Carmelita can get people to leave her alone.”

“Most people. Remember, it takes effort for her to-”

“Yes, Isadora, I know how her powers work. We’ve been stuck with her for almost a year now.” Duncan sighed.

“Speaking of, um, powers.” Klaus said, glancing up at Isadora. “Are you… do you think you could-”

“Klaus.” Isadora sighed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “Do we have to do this now?”

“Maybe we’re closer today.”

“I just- it’s never worked.”

“Please, Isa?” Duncan asked, glancing up, too.

Isadora let out a sigh, and then moved closer to them, sitting beside them and holding her hands together, shutting her eyes. “I’m blaming you if I pass out.” she muttered.

“Fair.” Duncan said.

Isadora then let her mind wander, let herself reach out. She felt a pang of hope from Duncan, and quite a lot of it from Klaus, though he also had a bit of desperation going on. Sunny seemed very curious, and mostly expectant. She couldn’t fathom this not working. Couldn’t conceptualize that it might never work.

Isadora tried to stuff her own emotions down, to focus entirely on the feelings of others. More specifically, of the others she was connected to.

She could feel, after a moment, distantly, a bit of fear from Fiona. That wasn’t good- unless, of course, it was the general fear she felt whenever going into a new town too close to Indiana. That was probably it; Fiona could take care of herself.

_Focus harder._

She focused for about a minute, just reaching out and feeling sparks of emotion from everyone in the car, and from Fiona, whose feelings seemed to be getting clearer; she must be returning back to the car.

_Look for them._

_They’re not there._

_At least try._

_I’ve tried for a year._

_They’re not_ there.

“Nothing.” Isadora said, opening her eyes and unclasping her hands.

The disappointment on Duncan and Klaus’s faces almost broke her heart, even though she’d seen it a million times before.

Sunny crawled over to her, putting a head on her knee and muttering something. “Sure?”

“Yeah.” Isadora said. “I’m sure. I felt Fiona- she’s on her way back- and I felt all of you. Nothing from… from anyone else.”

“Maybe they’re too far away.” Duncan suggested.

“Remember what Fiona said? I reached Quigley from another dimension.”

“Yes, but he was technically in the same place, just on the other side.” Duncan said. “Maybe it’s different when he’s… wherever he is.”

“And maybe it’s harder for you to connect to Violet cause you’ve only known her a bit.” Klaus said. “At least that you can remember.”

“You wanna try digging into memories again?” Isadora asked, glancing at her brother.

“No fucking way.” Duncan said. “That scares me a _lot_.”

“Fiona’ll probably make you anyway.” Klaus muttered, playing with the edge of his shirt. “Eventually. Just to see what you can do.”

“I don’t want to mess with memories, though.” Duncan said. “And I sure as hell don’t want to live anyone else’s again.”

“It might come in handy. You never know.” Isadora said.

“I’d hope it doesn’t. My telepathy’s already enough of a problem.”

Isadora felt concerned, reaching forwards to touch her brother’s hand. “Is it acting up now?”

“No… it’s been acting up less, but… it’s still… I feel bad using it.”

“Duncan-” Klaus began.

“It feels invasive.” he continued. “Like… thoughts are supposed to be super private, and I’m just… hearing them. And turning it off is still really hard, and I don’t like hearing things people don’t want me to hear, and-“

“Hey.” Klaus put a hand over his. “Hey, do you want to calm down?”

Duncan took a sharp breath, and then said, “Kinda. Yeah. B-but we don’t want to waste batteries-”

“It’ll be fine.” Isadora said. She leaned over, grabbing Duncan’s bag and digging through it. “It’s in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Does it have the calming music or the loud music?”

“I-I don’t remember, it doesn’t matter-”

“The calming tape’ll probably help better.” Klaus said carefully. “I mean, the loud one might make your nerves worse.”

“It won’t.” Duncan promised. “It actually helps better when I’m overstimulated, then I only hear that and nothing else.”

“But you’re not overstimulated, you’re stressed.”

“It’ll still be fine.”

They heard a triple tap on the car door, and then Carmelita swung it open, climbing in. “We’re leaving.” she said.

“So soon?” Isadora asked, a bit startled.

“Yeah. Fiona thought she recognized someone so-” Carmelita began.

“So we’re changing route.” Fiona said, jumping into the front seat of the van. “We’ll get off in the next town over.”

“We’re driving?” Duncan asked carefully.

“Yeah, so, hold on.” Fiona said. “We might be going fast.”

“In that case,” Isadora finally found what she was looking for, and pulled it out of the bag, tossing it to her brother. “You’re gonna want this, then.”

Duncan and Klaus both smiled a little as Duncan flipped the walkman over, scrambling to grab the attached headphones. Sunny giggled a little, before crawling over to sit on Klaus’s lap as Fiona started the car.

The walkman had been Klaus’s idea, something he seemed very proud of. Isadora knew he’d been terrified when he stole it a few months back, and somehow even more nervous when he actually gave it to Duncan, suggesting quietly that it might help his overstimulation in crowds if he could drown out the noise with something else. Him and Carmelita had apparently teamed up to snag a few different cassette tapes, too, and them, Fiona and Sunny had wrapped them in a plastic bag they found on the sidewalk and given it to Duncan for the triplets’ birthday, while they also gave Isadora a collection of poetry books they’d smuggled out of a bookstore. Isadora still had the books in her bag, and Duncan hadn’t let the walkman get more than a few feet away from him since he got it.

Duncan managed to turn it on, and then he leaned against the wall as Fiona started driving. Isadora sat next to him, grabbing one of his hands. Klaus glanced towards them, smiling as he saw Duncan fiddling with the walkman, before also moving against a wall, wrapping his arms around Sunny and muttering something that made her giggle. Carmelita rolled out a blanket and curled up on it, clearly intending to fall asleep again as they drove.

Duncan started humming a bit with the music, and Isadora leaned her head up against him. She was glad he at least had this small comfort. And she was glad she still had him.

He might be the only thing she had left.

Duncan quietly started to sing under his breath, only just loud enough for this sister to hear.

“ _If I go there will be trouble… and if I stay, it will be double… so come on and let me know… Should I stay or should I go?”_


	6. Violet and Quigley have a Chat

**CHAPTER SIX**

_Violet and Quigley have a Chat_

 

Quigley was staring at the ceiling, fiddling with the covers of the sheets. Sleeping on a bed had gotten a bit strange; those were very hard to find, and him and Violet had gotten quite used to sleeping on the dirt, or hard floors, or on the back of a bus. Maybe he should’ve just slept outside… no, no. He didn’t like sleeping alone.

He wondered, for what felt like the millionth time, if he should’ve argued a bit more about their destination. Even last night, he’d just let Violet talk about going straight to Chicago so that she wouldn’t ask more about his stupid episode, but… maybe he shouldn’t have been so passive. He’d rather be with Duncan and Isadora than some random adult they didn’t know who only _might_ help them, who Violet only thought could help because her abilities implied as much.

And, honestly, he figured that Duncan and Isadora just being around him might make him feel safe enough that those stupid fucking episodes might stop.

He slowly sat up, brushing his hair out of his face and yawning a little. He glanced to the side, and jumped slightly upon seeing that the bed across from him was empty.

_Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out, she doesn’t need to be here all the time. You’re not alone, she’s just wandered off._

Quigley slowly got out of bed, throwing on his jacket and stumbling out of the room. He listened carefully and, sure enough, he heard a few metallic clanks from a few rooms over.

_She’s not that hard to find, is she?_

Quigley walked down the hall and slowly pushed open the door. He quickly spotted Violet, kneeling in front of an air conditioner machine, a ribbon holding back her hair as she muttered to herself and messed with the inside of it. He wandered over, sitting next to her and watching as she fiddled with something, the cover of the machine resting against the wall.

She noticed him after a minute, and she said, “You’re right, the shower works.”

“It felt great, didn’t it?”

“Hell yeah.” Violet said. “I’m just fixing this air conditioner. It’s really not that hard, it’s just a matter of- oh. Uh, you’re not gonna understand anything I say, are you?”

“No.” Quigley admitted. “But I like hearing you talk about it.”

Violet gave him a soft smile. “That’s sweet.”

“It’s not sweet, it’s true.” Quigley stated honestly. “You get all excited and you kinda go off into your own world, and it just seems like all your problems are gone, even for a little while.”

“I wish it was that easy.” Violet sighed. “If all our problems could be solved by me ranting about mechanics, I’d never shut up.”

“You could give it a try.” Quigley suggested. “You wanna tell me what you did to the air conditioner?”

Violet paused, then just backed up, lifting the cover of the air conditioner with her mind and replacing it. “Nothing much. But it should work better now.”

“Is it easier to repair things?” Quigley asked. “With your… what’s it?”

“Ferrokinesis.” Violet said. “And it’s a bit better. I can sense all the metal I need, and now I don’t have to worry about losing loose screws or small tools. But it’s also fun to get hands-on with it, you know?”

Quigley nodded. “I mean, if my superpower was creating maps with my mind, I’d still want to do it myself. That takes half the fun out of it.”

“Yeah! I wouldn’t want to just sit back and watch while a machine repairs itself.”

Quigley paused, and then said, “Do you think our siblings are doing okay with their powers?”

Violet glanced away. “They said they are.”

“They could be lying.” Quigley sighed. “Duncan already had some severe overstimulation problems before the accident, and now he’s got telepathy… that’s gotta be hard on him. And Isadora has got to have issues- she said she’s literally feeling everyone else’s emotions, that’s gotta be awful.”

“They said they have some control over it now.” Violet said hesitantly. “And I can usually tell when my siblings are lying, so at least Klaus was being honest when he said they were all getting better. And Sunny…”

Quigley noticed her trail off, and he moved a bit closer. “It’s okay. Remember? You can talk about it.”

Violet sighed. “It must be so awful for her. She lost any chance of a normal childhood far before we did; she’s basically never had one. She might _never_ have one. She started getting her abilities when she was only a year old, what if she can’t remember living without them? What if she’s on the run for too long, and she just… doesn’t know what her childhood should be?” Violet clenched her fists. “Or what if the Lab gets to her? What if _they_ take her away?” She shut her eyes. “I just want to know she’s okay. I want to see her again.”

Hesitantly, Quigley said, “We could… we could try to find them first.”

“We will.” she said, like she always said, “We will find them. But I think we have to find Kit first.”

“You think because your ESP told you so, but you… I think you might be getting too reliant on that.” Quigley said. “You act like it’s the only constant in this world.”

“I can trust it. It’ll take us where we need to be.” Violet paused. “So long as Kit’s still in Chicago.”

“What if she’s not even there anymore? Maybe we took too long and missed her. We just saw her in one newspaper photo of a Library event, it’s not like-”

“It looked like she worked for that Library. Why would she leave if she had a steady enough job?”

“Maybe she found out they’d photographed her and wanted to get out before the Lab recognized her.”

“They had her real name for the caption, meaning she’s comfortable giving that out. And she looked pretty relaxed in the photo. That might be hard to fake.”

“Well, yeah,” Quigley hugged himself slightly, feeling a chill, “I guess.”

“We’re so close.” Violet said. “Once we find her, maybe she can help us shut down the Lab. Then we can find our siblings.”

“What if… your ESP is sending you for something else, though?” Quigley said. “What if she doesn’t want to help and this is some kind of trap? What if the Lab has someone who could, like, hack your ESP?”

“I don’t think anyone could do that.” Violet said. “And I think I’d know.”

“How?”

Violet sighed. “Look, we’ll have this conversation later. On the bus to Chicago. We should pack up and head out.”

“Violet-”

“Look, I want to find Klaus and Sunny as much as you want to find Duncan and Isadora. But they could be anywhere in the country, and they’ll be doing their best to cover their tracks. Our best hope _is_ my ESP, and if it’s gonna be a dick and insist we talk to an adult first, we’re gonna talk to an adult first. Besides, she definitely knew my Mother, she might know your parents, too. She can tell us _everything_.”

“I just… maybe we should be trying harder.” Quigley said.

“That’s not how it _works_.”

“I know! I know, I’m not saying that _you’re_ not trying hard, just that… look, maybe we should get to them first, make sure they’re safe. We can all go to Chicago together.”

“That’ll get us off track by at least a few weeks. There’s no way they just happen to be close.” Violet said. “And, even ignoring the fact we need to get to Kit before the Lab finds her or us… we’re both getting worse.”

Quigley knew that wasn’t any kind of personal attack, but he still bristled slightly. “We’re fine.”

“Quigley! You’ve had two episodes _this month_. They’re getting more frequent. The closer we get to closing the Lab and getting to a safe place, the closer we get to you getting some kind of medical attention.”

“I don’t need _medical attention_ , I just need…” Quigley shut his eyes. 

“Quigley.” Violet’s voice dropped slightly, trying to sound comforting. “I miss our siblings, too. But you can’t teleport to them if you don’t know where they are, and I can’t track them until my ESP stops bothering me.”

“I know.”

“I… I want to see them again.” Violet’s voice broke slightly. “I want to see them so bad. But I… I have a feeling we won’t find them until it’s safe again.”

“It’s been a year, Vi.” Quigley said, turning towards her. “It’s been a _year_ since I’ve seen my siblings.”

Violet held out her hand, and Quigley slowly took it. She squeezed it, and said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I… there’s just no way we can find them without going completely out of our way, for what could be… a long, long time.”

Quigley nodded. “And… we’re so close to finding this Kit woman, we might as well go as soon as we can.”

Violet smiled at him. “Yeah. And… look, if you want to talk about it some more, we can do that, okay? You can talk to me, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Of course, yeah.” Quigley forced a smile. “I just… I… I’ll go get my stuff, okay?”

“Yeah.” Violet nodded. “I’ll get mine, we’ll head out.”

She pulled her ribbon out of her hair and rolled back her sleeve so she could tie it around her wrist. She liked to cover up the _007_ as much as she could, and this was also a good way of keeping the ribbon where she could reach it. Quigley waited a minute, and then gave her a nod and ran off to find his bag.

 

_December 1983_

 

Well, her ESP was right about one thing. They definitely found something in their next town.

Violet was nervous the entire time they were there, gripping tight onto Quigley’s hand so they didn’t get separated and so that she had something to ground her to reality; if she didn’t, she might just slip into her ESP-world and start screaming until her hallucinations told her anything.

“What are we looking for?” Quigley asked quietly, after about an hour of navigating the streets, glancing through crowds and trying to figure out the layout of the town.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think our siblings are here?”

“They better be.”

“Do you think they’d be at the Library?”

“It’s likely. Klaus loves libraries, he might drag everyone else over there.”

“Duncan would want to look at old newspapers, and Isadora would be in the poetry section.”

“Okay, sounds like a decent start.” Violet said. “Where’s the Libra-”

“I spotted it a few blocks back. We just need to turn around, take two lefts and a right.”

Violet stared at him. “Have you been to this town before?”

Quigley shook his head, and she was surprised to see him smile slightly. “Just have a really good sense of direction.”

Violet smiled back it at him; it was nice to see him look happy. “Alright, why don’t you show me, then?”

Quigley looked very excited at that, nodding and dragging her back down the sidewalk. As they moved, Violet kept glancing at anyone else who was walking within their line of sight. None of them seemed to care much about the two dirty kids running down the street, but she still didn’t think they should let their guard down. Anyone could be working for the Lab, anyone could be a spy sent to trap them. Or anyone could notice that these kids were lugging around backpacks of stolen food and clothes and looked like they hadn’t seen the sun in a week, and call the police, who would probably just send them right back to the Department of Energy.

_Just stay calm, Vi. You won’t help anyone if you’re too paranoid to think straight._

“Here we go!” Quigley said, as they turned a bend, and Violet looked up to, indeed, see a large Library. “There! We made it!”

“We did. Nice work.” Violet said, and Quigley almost lit up. “But- just don’t get your hopes too high. My ESP isn’t always as helpful as I’d like it to be.”

“Whatever we find in there, I’m sure it’ll be important.” Quigley said.

Violet _hmm_ ed, and they walked inside, keeping their heads down and hoping that nobody looked at them too closely. They wandered for a bit, not quite sure how this library was organized, but hoping to catch a glimpse of something interesting, or maybe spot someone they knew.

They did not.

After a while, Violet sat at a table and let out a groan, crossing her arms on the table and laying her head on them.

“This was pointless.” she said.

“There’s still time to find something.” Quigley said quietly, sitting uncomfortably beside her.

“I just… I was just hoping this would be easier.” Violet admitted. “I was hoping that these stupid abilities would make this all a bit easier. I’m sorry I-“

“Don’t apologize for anything.” Quigley said. He glanced down at the table, and then said, “Hey, someone carved something here.” He gestured to the edge of the table, where someone had written a _M+J_.

“Yeah, sometimes idiot children like to carve things into public property.” Violet muttered.

Quigley ducked under the table. “A lotta idiot children, then. There’s a ton of stuff down here.”

Violet nervously ducked down with him, not really wanting him to be alone under the table. He didn’t seem bothered, though; he was just staring at carvings, looking incredibly fascinated. “Wow. How many kids you think were here?”

“A lot.” Violet only barely glanced at the carvings. “Quigley, look, I- about last night-”

Quigley paused, suddenly looking a bit embarrassed. “Look, look, I should be apologizing for that.”

“I shouldn’t have just left.”

“You were just using the bathroom, it’s not like you were trying to ditch me.” Quigley glanced at his hands. “And I-I don’t know what happened, with the Upside Down thing, but I-I…” He trailed off, staring at something behind on the underside of the table.

Violet didn’t notice at first. “Look… look, Klaus got a medical book just last year, and he was telling me about this thing called Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and one of the symptoms-”

“Violet.” Quigley said carefully. “How do you spell your last name?”

Violet felt very confused. “Why?”

Quigley pointed above them, and Violet looked towards one of the carvings, and felt her heart skip a beat.

Above them was a shakily-etched heart, but she recognized the way the heart was drawn. She saw the little circle at the bottom instead of the point, the way the lines arched, like question marks. And even though the handwriting was much too messy to be recognizable, she didn’t have any doubts about who had written, inside the heart, _Bee Baudelaire was here!_

Violet traced the heart with her finger, smiling a little. Then, she said, “My Mother was an idiot child.”

“Your Mother was here?”

She shut her eyes. “That’s probably why _we’re_ here.”

“Sorry?”

“I think…” she struggled to remember. “You know how we’re Seven and Ten?”

“Can’t really forget.”

“Mother was Three, I believe. There were other numbers. Five’s still at the Lab, and most of them are with our siblings, but that leaves Zero, One, Two and Four running around. At least one of them had to have escaped the Lab.”

“Zero?” Quigley looked confused. “There’s a Zero?”

“Ellie.”

“What?”

“I think her name was Ellie.” Violet said. She was struggling to remember; she thought her ESP had talked to her, at least once, about the other numbers, but she couldn’t quite recall the details. It had been a pretty stressful day, and she didn’t usually remember dreams anyway. “I think that’s what I… I think I was told some of it. Ellie, and then… I can’t remember…”

“Violet, are you okay?” Quigley asked carefully.

“Quigley, I think we need to find them.”

“Uh, no. We’re finding our siblings.”

“Well, obviously, but… I think we should be looking for the other experiments. Zero, One, Two, Four. One of them had to have escaped- I think I remember being told that Zero and… and Four got out. They can help us. They’ll all be adults by now, they’ll all be Mother’s age, someone will listen to them. They can help us.”

“If they escaped, why wouldn’t they have gone against the Lab yet?” Quigley asked, curling up a bit and hugging his knees.

“Maybe they think they’re alone, or that the Lab will hurt them.” Violet said. “But we can help. We can’t do much alone, because the police might think we’re just confused children and send us back, but they’d have to listen to an adult who experienced the same thing. Strength in numbers.”

“Was that a pun?” Quigley asked. “Numbers?”

“You bet your ass it was.”

Quigley paused. “But… how would we find them? They must be super well hidden if the Lab hasn’t found them.”

“Well, it took the Lab ten years to find us, and our parents didn’t even change their fucking names.” Violet said. “Maybe they just suck at finding people.”

“That would be a comforting thought.” Quigley said.

“But anyway, I’m sure we can dig something up.” Violet said, smiling slightly. “We’ve got abilities, remember? I can find things, you can go places.”

“Only places I’ve seen, and not that far.” Quigley said hesitantly, sounding a bit uncomfortable.

“This is great, Quigley. We have an idea of what we’re doing. An idea of how to make us all safe.”

“What if they don’t listen?”

“They’ll _have to._ ” Violet let out a sigh, and then turned to her friend. “Now. Do you think this place has old newspapers? Maybe we can find out more about my Mother, and what happened to her; that information should lead us to the numbers somehow, right?”

“They might have records somewhere.” Quigley said. “They used to at our Library at home, Duncan used to go there all the time.” He paused, then smiled a bit. “Think we could steal a couple for him?”

“If you’ll use your own bag.”

“Deal.”

They smiled at each other, and then raced out from under the table, running to find where the records might be.

 

_October 1984_

 

Quigley remade the bed and then searched through the room to make sure he didn’t leave anything behind. Then he emptied his bag and double-checked everything inside; you could never be too careful. It had taken a long time to gather this many supplies, and he didn’t want to leave any behind.

He had the box of health bars and bag of chips, as well as the smaller bag of essentials- toothbrushes, toothpaste, whatever soap they could find, stuff like that. He had his emergency cash all rolled up and tied together with a hairband, and his spare set of clothing; they’d wash the clothes they had on next time they found an affordable laundromat. He had his box of pencils and commonplace book- the small notebook was the first thing he’d stolen on his own; he and his siblings had always had one and he felt strange without it. (He sometimes wondered what happened to his last one, but he figured it was either confiscated by the Lab or by whoever investigated the car accident, so it was probably long gone.) He had a spare ribbon for Violet, just in case she lost hers, and an empty bottle to fill with water before they left. There was a blanket, folded and kept at the bottom of the bag, a sewing kit that had taken a surprisingly long time to swipe, a lighter and box of matches, and the pocketknife that Violet had insisted he keep in his jacket pocket, just in case they got separated and he needed to defend himself. He had a small box full of maps he’d collected from different towns, which he liked to look over on occasion. And in a smaller bag, he had a few rolled-up newspapers he’d been saving for Duncan, and a beautiful bound notebook he’d stolen for Isadora, one of the kinds she loved to write in. He’d been hoping to give it to her for their birthday, but… well, he’d missed that opportunity.

Quigley carefully packed it all back up, shouldering the backpack. It was a bit heavier than the bags he used to carry from place-to-place back home, but he’d gotten used to it. He’d gotten used to a lot of things, really. A lot of things he probably shouldn’t be used to. But that was okay. Hopefully Violet was right and it would be over soon, and they’d never have to run again. He could throw this bag away, and find somewhere safe to live, and they’d find their siblings and the other numbers with them, and everything would be okay. They’d be safe.

Safe…

Would they, though? Even after the Lab was shut down, what would happen to them? Would they get tossed into foster care? God help anyone who tried to split them up. Maybe they’d be allowed on their own… no, no, that was stupid, they were fourteen. Where would they get money for rent? And what would haappen if the Lab came back, would anybody be able to protect them? He knew he’d do anything and everything to keep Duncan and Isadora away from those awful people, but could he take them on the run? And what would happen if the Lab got to them first?

If the Lab got to them first, he’d go back in and kill everyone who stood between him and his siblings.

Violet said that she’d had to do that. She’d only mentioned it once, when he’d woken her up from a nightmare. They’d been under a bridge, then, sleeping under thin blankets and hoping that nobody would spot them before they could be awake enough to run. She’d admitted, then, that Klaus had been in the Lab for a few hours. She hadn’t said much- she _really_ didn’t like thinking about her time as an experiment, which was something Quigley could definitely understand- but she had said that when she’d found out, she’d had to kill a guard to try and find him.

“They were going to kill me for that.” she’s said, huddled under the extra warmth of Quigley’s jacket, which he’d thrown over her shoulders while she cried. “They would’ve killed me if the other numbers hadn’t escaped. They were going to… Quigley, there’s so many things they could have _done_ to me.”

“I know.”

“Just because I didn’t want them to kill my baby brother.”

Quigley had known that feeling full well. They’d threatened Duncan and Isadora plenty of times; not usually as punishment, because he’d honestly been too confused and terrified to question the Lab until it was far too late. But he’d overheard guards talking, when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. Talking about how they were under watch, how they would be dragged in the second they started showing their abilities. And Quigley had been more terrified of that than of most everything else they threatened to do to him.

And now he was scared of a lot of things. He was scared of falling into the Upside Down again. He was scared of whatever that thing was in the other world that had been watching him. He was scared that the Monster wasn’t dead, or that the Lab would catch up to them before they could get to Chicago, and he was scared that they Lab would get the other numbers, that they would get Duncan and Isadora, that they would get him. That they would get Violet.

What if the Lab took the last bit of his family away?

What if they all died before they could shut down the Lab, and they just kept tormenting kids?

What if they all succeeded, but then the adults decided to separate him and his siblings? What if they were given to a shitty foster family?

What would happen if, once they found their families and shut down the Lab, Violet left, and he never saw her again?

What if he kept having these bullshit flashes into the Upside Down and it just got worse and worse until he completely lost it?

Quigley felt that chill again, and he clutched his jacket, glancing around to see if they’d left a window open.

_Please, please tell me we left a window open._

They hadn’t left a window open.

He felt that presence again, that presence of something watching him. Something dark. Something that wanted to… to _kill._

He shut his eyes, stepping back. If he couldn’t see anything, he couldn’t see it. He wouldn’t teleport to the Upside Down, whether in reality or in his imagination. He’d just keep his eyes shut, and try to keep his breathing normal, and nothing bad could happen.

“Quigley!”

Quigley jumped and opened his eyes to see Violet run in, fiddling with the straps on her bag and looking terrified.

“Quigley, we have to go, _now_!”

“What? What’s going on?”

Violet reached out his hand for him to grab, and said, “Someone’s at the house.”


	7. Fiona and Isadora go for a Drive

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

_Fiona and Isadora go for a Drive_

 

“Can we stop now?” Isadora asked.

Fiona turned slightly to glare at the kids in the back of the van. “We stopped to use the bathroom less than two hours ago.”

“Not for that.” Isadora said. “I just don’t wanna be driving right now.”

“Would you like to sleep in the van tonight again?”

“No, but I also don’t wanna be driving right now.”

Fiona sighed. “You guys wanna take a breather on the side of the road?”

“Yes!” Duncan called very quickly.

“That’s fine by me.” Klaus said.

“Don’t care.” Carmelita shrugged.

“Right, we’ll have a break.” Fiona sighed. “We’re on an empty road anyway, nobody’ll notice.”

She pulled over, glancing around. They were on a stretch of road surrounded by a field of grass that looked like it went on forever, but Fiona was pretty sure it ended in a few miles, at least close enough to not worry about gas.

She parked and opened the back door, and Duncan ran out first, still shoving his walkman back into his bag. Isadora ran out after him, followed quickly by Klaus, who was holding a giggling Sunny. Fiona waited until Carmelita jumped off, watching as the others went to sit in the grass.

“We should be in the next town by nightfall. Maybe we can get a hotel room if we’re lucky.” Fiona said.

“I’d like a shower,” Carmelita said. “But do we have the cash?”

“I got enough for a night.” Fiona said. “And it’s not like we use that money for food or anything.”

“If we get separated?”

“We all have emergency funds. Sunny can get us back together, I’m sure.”

Carmelita eyed her. “You know she’s a toddler, right?”

“You’ve seen what she can do.”

“I mean… you’re expecting a lot. She can barely read or walk, if she gets split up from us, she could…” Carmelita cut herself off. “I mean… not that I give a shit or anything.”

“Hmm.” Fiona smiled slightly. “Of course.” She sighed. “Look, it’s not like any of us are ever safe. Especially since we’re getting closer to…  you know what.”

Carmelita shrugged, and after a moment, Fiona walked towards the other kids. “Hey.” she said. “While we’re out, anyone want to try anything? Klaus, wanna throw some stuff around with your mind?”

“Not especially.” Klaus muttered, looking far from enthusiastic at the idea.

“Sunny, want to-”

“Trawa.” Sunny said, which probably meant, _“Thank you, but I would prefer to make a grass chain; Klaus said he would show me how.”_

“Actually,” Isadora said slowly, glancing at her brother, “Could we do some stuff?”

“Sure.” Fiona nodded, and Isadora stood up, giving her brother a smile before walking towards the van with the older girl. Carmelita pushed past her and flopped onto the ground, spreading herself out in the grass and muttering something about dirt.

Isadora waited until they were leaning against the van walls before turning towards Fiona. “Hey, I was wondering if I could practice driving a little? Before the trip started again.”

Fiona raised an eyebrow. “You just said you wanted out of the car.”

Isadora nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Duncan wanted out of the car. But he wasn’t going to say anything.”

Fiona glanced over Isadora’s shoulder, to see that Duncan and Klaus were twisting strands of grass, trying to tie them together into some kind of chain, while Sunny sat beside Carmelita and pulled at her braid.

“He really doesn’t like driving.”

“What, the last year didn’t give you that impression?”

“I figured he’d get over it.”

Isadora glanced sideways at her. “Like you get over Moby Dick?”

Fiona started slightly, and Isadora immediately looked guilty. “Sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

Fiona held up a hand to stop her, “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not, I shouldn’t have-”

“Get in the driver’s seat. We’ll go a mile or so then turn around, okay?”

Isadora nodded, and raced to the car.

 

Fiona had tried to teach all of them how to drive, to varying degrees of success. She always told them that it was important they know how to not only break into a car, but to drive it, in case they were separated and needed a quick getaway. They were all decent enough at getting in, but the driving itself was pretty difficult.

Carmelita did surprisingly well enough, though she liked to speed up a lot. The problem with her was that she looked even younger than she was, so if she drove anything she’d probably get pulled over. Klaus was okay, but he got incredibly anxious behind the wheel and kept muttering driving rules over and over to himself, and while a recent growth spurt meant that he looked decently old enough he wouldn’t get arrested immediately, there was still the fact that he was nervous enough that he _might_ get caught that he was never comfortable behind the wheel for long. Most shockingly, _Sunny_ seemed to be the best driver out of all of them, once they strapped enough books to her feet so she could reach the gas pedals and got her on some kind of booster. This was probably due to the fact that she’d taken the driving manual to practice her information absorption on, and thus knew almost all the driving rules like the back of her hand. This was good when Fiona needed to repair any cars, but quite bad in a lot of other cases, because Sunny really liked driving and couldn’t see why they wouldn’t let her, no matter how many times they explained that she kept swerving due to an inability to see a lot out of the windshield, and how she was also literally a toddler and thus would attract a lot of attention from police.

Duncan had only driven once, mainly because Fiona forced him to after weeks of asking, and she’d finally gotten them into an empty parking lot to practice in. And he’d hated every second of it; he kept asking if he was doing things right or wrong, kept nervously checking the rearview mirrors, and almost swerved them into a lamppost because he was thinking about something else. But Isadora had done pretty decently thus far, so Fiona felt alright taking her down the road. She did feel a bit nervous leaving the other kids alone, but they’d probably be fine; Klaus could still toss things with his mind, Sunny could lift things a hundred times her weight, and Carmelita could get them out of quite a lot of situations. They should be okay for a few minutes.

Isadora drove for a bit, glancing out the windows on occasion and keeping her face passively blank. Fiona fiddled with the edge of her jacket, not entirely comfortable being in the passenger seat.

After a few minutes of silence, Isadora hit the brakes, and parked the car in the middle of the road.

“You okay?” Fiona asked, turning towards her.

Isadora stared ahead for a long moment, to the point where Fiona was a little worried she wouldn’t answer at all, before saying, “When did you know your brother was dead?”

Fiona felt like she’d been punched in the gut.

She took a deep breath, twisting her jacket as she did, struggling to find the right words. Then, she said, “Guess I knew from Day One. You don’t just fight the Lab without a plan, you know? I… guess it took me a while to process, though. I couldn’t really figure out anything until I was already out of town, and I was… I didn’t take it well, but I basically knew I was never going to see him again.”

Isadora didn’t look her way, instead continuing to stare out at the road.

Fiona sighed, and then said, “Isadora, maybe there’s another reason you can’t reach him.”

“Like _what_?” she sounded almost bitter now, which was better than not reacting.

“Your powers are relatively new, and completely unprecedented. Literally anything could be happening.” Fiona said. “Maybe he’s hiding his own feelings very well, maybe it’s a distance thing, maybe you can only feel him from far away when he’s especially hurt, or maybe it’s… perhaps, subconsciously, you don’t want to feel him.”

“Why wouldn’t I want to know my brother’s alive?” Isadora snapped, turning to glare at Fiona, who meet her gaze with a passive stare.

“Well… maybe you’re just scared of what you’ll find?”

“Like what?”

“Pain.” Fiona said quietly. “You could realize he’s alive but being tortured, or he’s wounded or hurt. Or… you could be right, but you won’t just feel nothing, you’ll feel _nothing_. Just… emptiness, where there should be something real.”

Isadora pushed her hair behind her ear, glancing at her lap so she wouldn’t have to meet Fiona’s eyes.

“Could be a mix of a lot of reasons.” Fiona continued, also staring into the grass outside. “Or maybe your empathy is just unpredictable. It took me years to hone my powers enough to reliably plan my escape, you’ve only _known_ you have abilities for about… eleven months? You’re not the only one; Klaus can still barely toss things enough for an escape, Duncan still has problems turning his telepathy off, Sunny-”

“Duncan has more problems than I do.” Isadora said quietly. “He shouldn’t be out here.”

“What’s that-”

“He shouldn’t be in as much danger as he is.” Isadora said. “Neither should Klaus or Sunny, or Mel, or any of us. But… this is, like, a huge stressor for him.”

“Well, it’s not like life on the run is normally a stress-free experience.”

“You don’t… he’s always had anxiety problems, and issues with change and unpredictability, and this is just… he can’t even get into a _car_ without freaking out, and he doesn’t want me to know but even if I couldn’t _feel_ it, I’d be able to tell because he’s my _brother_ , and he’s just…” she shut her eyes, and squeezed the steering wheel. “All he’s got is the hope we’ll find Quigley again. And… and I don’t know how to tell him that I don’t think we _will_.”

Isadora froze, then, shocked that she’d actually said it aloud. And then she gripped tighter onto the wheel and started to cry. “He’s… I don’t… I don’t- I just-”

“Isadora?”

Isadora let go of the steering wheel as her cries got worse, and after a moment, Fiona leaned over and hugged her. Isadora barely managed to move her arms around her friend, struggling to speak through her sobs.

“Isadora, it’s okay.” Fiona muttered. “It’s okay, just let it out, okay?”

“I can’t- I can’t _tell him_.” Isadora sobbed. “I can’t tell him, I- I- it’s our brother, I want to- I-”

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I _want him back!_ ” Isadora sounded almost like she was screaming now. She started shaking, yelling, “I want Quigley _back!_ ”

“I know. I-”

“I want my family _back_!” Isadora pulled away, definitely shouting now. She punched the dashboard, shutting her eyes to try and halt the flow of tears. “I want my _life back_! They took everything from us!”

“Isadora-”

“They took our _parents_ , our home, our _fucking_ freedom- we can’t even go to school! We can’t tell anyone our _fucking names_! We have to hide from our own _fucking government!_ ” Isadora screamed. “They took our _brother_ and they tortured him until he disappeared into another _fucking dimension!_ And now he’s _gone_ , he’s _gone_ and we couldn’t find him and I can’t- Duncan’s all I’ve _got_ and I _can’t talk to him_ … I can’t even-”

“Isadora-”

“We had _lives._ ” Isadora cried. “I already had college options picked out! I wanted to be a fucking writer! Duncan and Quigley wanted to do _so much,_ and our parents- our- they _killed our fucking parents,_ Fiona! And they _killed our brother!_ ”

That was when Isadora completely broke down. She let out another cry, and then finally turned around to let Fiona hug her again. She sobbed into her shoulder, shaking with every emotion she was feeling at the moment. Fiona herself could barely keep from crying as she held the girl, not sure if it was from normal empathy or Isadora’s powers acting up, and trying to find something, anything to say.

It took several minutes, but eventually Isadora calmed down enough that Fiona could talk over her. “Do you need anything?”

“No.”

“You want me to drive back?”

“No. No, I…” Isadora pulled away, using her sleeve to wipe her tears away. “I like driving. It…”

“Gives you some control?” Fiona nodded. “Get that.”

“I’m sorry-”

“Don’t apologize. We’ve all had it pretty tough, and it’s not fair.” Fiona said. “And… you want to know something?”

“What?”

“Nobody’s really handling this better than you. We’re all…” Fiona struggled to find the words.

“Depressed as fuck?”

“Yeah.” Fiona considered for a moment, then said, “Don’t, uh, tell anyone I told you this, but… I can hear the others crying sometimes. When they think nobody can hear them. It’s… it’s mostly Klaus, I’m… worried he’s…”

Isadora nodded. “He doesn’t like talking about stuff like that.”

Fiona nervously adjusted her glasses, and then said, “You really should talk to Duncan, too. Maybe not… not to crush his hopes or anything, but it’s better to be honest, right?”

“Yeah.” Isadora nodded. “I… I need to tell him at some point, the radio just makes me feel worse. It’s like…” She cut herself off, wiping her eyes with her sleeve.

Fiona paused. “And I meant what I said. Just because you can’t feel your brother doesn’t mean he’s not there.”

“I know.” She didn’t sound convinced. After a moment, she said, “We really need to find a more permanent place, though. I think this roadtrip is driving everyone nuts.”

“I’ve never really been anywhere ‘permanent.’” Fiona admitted.

“It’d be better for all of us.”

“It’ll be better for all of us when the Lab’s burned to the ground.”

Isadora sighed, before turning the car back on. “So long as we get to light it up.”

 

“They’ve been gone a while.” Duncan said, glancing down the road.

Klaus followed his gaze for a moment, then returned to his grass chain, which was the third one he’d attempted; the first two had ended up ripped apart on accident. “They’ll be back soon. Nothing’s gonna hurt Fiona and Isadora.”

“Something could hurt us.” Carmelita said brightly. “A bear could come out of nowhere and eat us. Or a moose.”

“Moose aren’t native to Ohio.” Klaus said.

“Mooses.”

“The plural of ‘moose’ is ‘moose’, Carmelita.”

“Meese.”

“ _No._ ”

“Sunny,” Duncan quickly changed the subject, glancing towards the toddler. “How’s the grass chain coming?”

Sunny held up her chain, which was nearly twice her own length.

“How are you so _good_ at this?” Klaus asked, only half-jokingly.

Sunny shrugged and went back to tying grass.

“Hey, look.” Carmelita held out a piece of grass, which she’d bent towards the top, and tied another grass stalk to the center. “It’s a bird.”

“Cool.” Klaus said, not entirely sure what response she wanted.

“Avis!” Sunny giggled, pointing to it.

Duncan glanced towards the road again. “You think they’ll be back soon?”

“Don’t be so worried, Duncan.” Klaus said, carefully putting a hand over his. “They’re gonna be fine.”

“They should’ve been back by now.”

“Literally nothing could hurt Fiona.” Carmelita said. “In case you’ve forgotten, she can kill people with her mind.”

“So could these two, if they wanted.” Duncan said, gesturing to the Baudelaires, who didn’t look very comfortable with that thought. “But what happens if they get taken by surprise?”

“They won’t be.” Carmelita said unconvincingly.

“Hey,” Klaus said quickly, “What time is it?”

“4:09.” Duncan said, glancing down at his watch. “We don’t need to call yet.”

“We could think of what to say today.” Klaus suggested. “Nothing much happened.”

“Just tell them you played with grass and Isadora drove the car for a bit.” Carmelita shrugged. “Or you could just not call tonight.”

“Not going to happen.” Klaus said quickly.

“Suit yourself.” Carmelita shrugged. “Anyone else wanna drive before we get to town?”

Duncan quickly shook his head, as did Klaus. Sunny raised a hand and cried, “Me! Me!”

“Sunny, you are _not driving._ ” Klaus said tiredly.

In response, Sunny gave him a glare and flipped him off.

Carmelita burst into hysterical laughter, while Klaus just yelled, _“Who taught you that?”_

Duncan glanced to the side, and then sighed with relief as he spotted the van coming back.

“Well, better get going.” Carmelita said, still giggling as she stood up. “If we wanna get into town before night, you know?”

“Hey,” Duncan asked, looking up, “Why did we change directions again?”

“Fiona’s decision.” Carmelita shrugged, glancing away and fiddling with her braid. “Doesn’t matter, really. We’ll be far away soon.”

“I guess.” Duncan shrugged.

Klaus, meanwhile, glanced over at Sunny. She had her eyes shut, and her hands twitched slightly, still gripping onto the grass chain. He slowly walked over to pick her up as Duncan and Carmelita made their way to the car. As he lifted her, he whispered, “What is it? You’re sensing something. What’s going on?”

Sunny was silent, and then she said, “Roane.”

Klaus froze over.

Because what she’d meant was, _“We’re going towards Hawkins.”_


	8. Quigley sees a Monster

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

_Quigley sees a Monster_

 

“What do you mean, ‘Someone’s at the House’?” Quigley asked, his fear increasing.

“Car just pulled in the driveway.” Violet said nervously, still holding out her hand for him. “Doesn’t look like the Lab, but you never know, and it’s not like we want anyone else to catch us. You have everything?”

“Yeah-”

“Then come on!”

Quigley hesitantly grabbed Violet’s hand, and there was a pause, before she asked, “Quigley? Can you teleport us out?”

“I…” Quigley struggled to form the words, feeling a lump in his throat. “Vi, I-”

“What’s wrong?” she moved closer, scanning him, trying to figure out what had happened. “What’s going on?”

“I… Violet, I-I think it might be happening again.” He glanced away. “The… an episode, it’s…”

Violet stared at him in horror, and then said, “Out the window it is. Come on, let’s get it open before they can get into the house.”

They rushed over to the nearest window, and Violet focused on the lock, waiting until it switched itself before she let go of Quigley’s hand to push the window open. Quigley glanced behind him at the bedroom door, desperately thinking over their routine for leaving a house, trying to remember if they’d forgotten anything. If they left something behind that could lead the Lab to their location…

“You have everything?” Quigley asked.

Violet nodded. “Okay, we’ll be able to get down. There’s a slanted roof outside this window, we can jump from there and be perfectly fine. Grab on, we’ll go together.”

Quigley nodded, and they held hands again as they slowly clambered out the window, struggling not to slide down the roof and reach the ground before they were ready. Violet hastily managed to shut the window behind them, and then the two of them ran to the edge of the roof.

“Holy shit, that’s high up.” Quigley muttered.

“Would you rather go out the door?” Violet asked.

“Really wouldn’t.”

“Then come on.” Violet slowly put her arm around Quigley. “We can do this.”

Quigley shut his eyes as they jumped, which turned out to be a mistake.

Because when they hit the ground, he felt a sharp, painful jolt, and then suddenly he couldn’t feel Violet’s arm around him anymore.

Instead, he felt cold.

_No, no, no, no, no…_

Quigley stumbled forwards before finally opening his eyes, and seeing the dark world surrounding him, covered in mold and decay.

“No.” he whispered, hugging himself tight. “No, no, no, no…”  

He couldn’t hear Violet, or see her, or feel her. He was alone, in the Upside Down. He was lost.

And it was watching him again.

 

“Quigley?” Violet jumped as Quigley suddenly stumbled away from her, turning pale as a ghost. “Quigley, what’s-”

“No.” he muttered, eyes wide. “No, no, no, no…”

Oh, God.

“Quigley!” Violet ran forwards, trying to grab his hand, only for him to move backwards, as if something was running towards him. “Quigley, hey, listen to me! You’re here, you’re safe!”

“Violet!” he shouted, as if she wasn’t right next to him. “Violet!”

“Shh, shh!” Violet said, still trying to reach towards him. “Quigley, it’s okay, I’m right here!”

“ _Violet_!” He looked on the edge of tears, and suddenly he _bolted_ , rushing towards the direction of the road.

“Quigley, no!” Violet shouted, taking off after him. “Quigley, stop, it’s not sa-”

She suddenly felt herself pulled back, and as soon as she realized that someone had grabbed her arm, her stomach dropped.

“Hey, kid,” said an unfamiliar voice, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

Violet whipped around, staring at a the tall man holding her back. She paused for a moment, and then stomped on his foot. As he yelped, she ripped her arm away, turning around and starting to run after Quigley again. “Quigley!” she yelled. “Quigley, run, go-”

She was yanked back, and it took her a good few seconds to process that it was because the man had grabbed her hair. He pulled on her hair, trying to drag her back, and that was when she started screaming.

 

Quigley stared up at the sky, watching as the clouds flashed red.

And then something started to rise.

As he stared, something dark, like some kind of cloud, emerged over the horizon, growing bigger as it grew higher. It started spreading over the sky, the figure forming what looked like several legs, spinning and swirling as if they were made of dust.

“Violet!” he called, frozen in fear. “Violet!”

By the time it created what might have been a head, the form had turned towards him, and Quigley could tell that it was staring right at him.

He only paused for a second, before he screamed for Violet again, and turned to run.

He heard what sounded like a screech, and he felt the presence following him. He didn’t dare turn to look, to see what was happening; he only ran, struggling not to trip over the roots and vines underneath his feet. He raced towards what must have been a road, hoping he could outrun the thing, praying it couldn’t catch him. He had to get away, he knew that; that thing was evil, it wanted to kill, it wanted… it…

A scream pierced his ears, and he skidded to a stop.

_Violet!_

He blinked, and the world returned to normal. He stumbled backwards, still shaking and feeling like he might throw up. His sight was blurry, and he realized, after a moment, that was because his eyes were filled with tears. He shook his head, and then heard the scream again, from behind him.

_“Let go of me!”_

_Violet._

Quigley stumbled back some more, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He heard a slam of a car door, and whipped around to see someone come out of a van, only a few feet to his left… damn, he hadn’t even noticed it.

“What the hell’s going on?” she asked, looking more confused than upset.

Violet screamed again, and Quigley reached into his jacket pocket, grabbing his pocketknife before turning and running towards her, ignoring the person by the car, who now seemed to be yelling at him, but it was hard to tell, his ears were ringing a bit, and he still felt nauseous and shaken.

As he turned back, he saw, just past the side of the house, someone fighting with Violet. He had one hand on her hair, and one on her backpack, dragging her back, yelling questions at her. Violet was trying to pull away without releasing her bag, and she had her eyes shut, clearly trying to find something metal to attack with. Neither of them seemed to notice Quigley as he still raced forwards, pushing himself to go faster.

Then, as Violet took a brief second to concentrate on something, the man let go of her hair and grabbed onto her shoulder.

_Oh fuck._

Violet froze over, her eyes suddenly getting wide and her breath catching in her throat. She tensed up, and the man backed up slightly, saying, “Fucking hell, kid, you-”

Quigley finally reached them and, without thinking, opened his pocketknife and stabbed the man in the side.

The man let out a stunned gasp, and Quigley, now relying entirely on instinct, ripped the knife back and grabbed Violet’s forearm, pushing her behind him as the shocked man finally released his hold on her. Quigley stuffed the knife back into his pocket, and then pulled Violet off with him, away from both the road and the man.

The second they were far enough away, he whipped around, hugging her tight, and shut his eyes.

_Bus station. Bus station. Bus station._

He heard another yell, and then the two of them vanished into the Void.

They were suspended in nothingness for only a moment, and Quigley started shaking harder, gripping tighter onto a frozen Violet, his only thought being that he could not let go of her.

When they exited the Void, suddenly gasping in air and feeling much warmer, Quigley backed away, looking Violet over, trying to see if she was injured. She was shaking about as much as him, and she ran a hand over her hair, as if shocked to be feeling it.

They were behind the last bus station they’d been to, and thank God nobody happened to be there. Quigley had a bit of trouble processing much of what was around him, only really recognizing that they were where they needed to be and that he was starting to feel cold again, and that… and that…

Had he _stabbed_ someone?  

Him and Violet looked at each other, meeting eyes, both feeling absolutely terrified, for each other and for themselves.

“Are you-” Quigley began, his voice getting choked up before he could finish.

“Are-” Violet started, before her breath caught in her throat.

Then they both started to cry. Quigley raced forwards and hugged Violet again, and then they were sobbing and clinging to each other, refusing to let go.

They both knew they’d have to move soon, they’d have to get on a bus to Chicago before the people who’d attacked them could report them to the police, or before they could lose their chance to get out of town.

But all they could do was hold each other and sob.

 

_January 1984_

 

“Hey,” Violet said, scooting closer to Quigley. “I have an idea.”

They were sitting next to a river, occasionally tossing a stone into the water to watch it get swept away. They hadn’t been able to find a reliable place to sleep that night, so next to the stream it was. Hopefully they wouldn’t attract too many bugs or wild animals.

“Yeah?” Quigley asked, glancing over at her and pushing some hair out of his eyes; he’d have to cut that eventually, he assumed.

Violet took a deep breath, fiddling with her zipper. “Um… I think we should test your teleportation.”

Quigley paused. “Oh.”  

“I… I know you said it doesn’t always work well.” Violet said. “And that you don’t want to… but I really think it would help us in the long run.”

“Yeah.”

“Quick getaways. And you could bust into stores and steal shit while I hack the security cameras.”

“Yeah.”

“Or we could get into buildings with documents we need, in case that’s how we find the other experiments.”

“Can’t your ESP-”

“My ESP isn’t a cheat code to making things easy, Quigley.” Violet said quietly. “I don’t know what we’ll need to do, and he won’t tell me shit, and-”

“Who’s he?”

“My ESP.” Violet said, her face going a bit red. “Long story. Well… anyway, you have this ability, you should use it.”

“Literally the only times I’ve used it,” Quigley said quietly, “Are when I was about to die, and when the Lab forced me to.”

“Well, that’s how I got my abilities.” Violet said. “But these powers… they’re not the Lab’s. They’re _mine_ . And your powers are _yours_. You should be able to use them. It’s… it’s part of us. These gifts, you know?” She ran a hand through her hair. “We shouldn’t let them take that away from us.”

“They’re not gifts, Violet.” Quigley whispered. “We just got cursed cause our Mothers did government-approved drugs while they were pregnant.”

“We are not _cursed_.”

“Oh, sorry. Forgot we were staying in a five-star hotel right now.”

“We’re not cursed.” Violet repeated. “Just a bit…”

“Unfortunate?”

“Hmm, not the word I was looking for, but sure.” She sighed. “My point still stands. You have this power, you should at least learn how to use it, if only to use it _against_ the Lab. Use it to survive.”

“The last time I disappeared,” Quigley said, clenching his fist, “I was so sick that I could barely move.”

“That might not happen this time. You’re not as sick, you’re in the right world…” Violet sighed. “Listen. You know that bridge, just past that bend in the river? I’m going to go stand on it. In one minute, teleport to me.”

“Violet, I-”

“I know you don’t want to.” Violet said. “But Quigley, this could really help. You can get food and supplies and get away from attackers and… and maybe, if you get your powers under your control, maybe it’ll help you, too.” She smiled slightly, and gave him a punch on the shoulder. “Convince you you’re not cursed.”

“I just…”

“Quigley, hey.” Violet gave him a smile. “It’ll be okay. You said you were getting pretty good at it before the incident, right? And you’ve seen the bridge?”

“Yeah, I know the bridge-”

“Then just come to me.” Violet said. “I’ll take your bag, so you don’t have to worry about teleporting that or anything. See you there.”

She stood up, then, and grabbed his bag from the grass, racing off before he could say another word. Quigley watched her go, before turning to stare at the stream again, fear clutching him.

_She’s right, Quigley. You’ve gotta learn how to use this._

_But I don’t want that to happen again. Last time…_

_Last time you were sick. You’re going to be fine._

Quigley shut his eyes, gripping his jacket and concentrating on the bridge. He slowly got to his feet, still thinking, trying to ignore the sounds of the river just a few feet from him, trying to ignore the fear still spreading through him.

_The Bridge. Just concentrate on the Bridge, and Violet._

He could do this. He could get there. He could disappear and reappear again and be perfectly fine. He wouldn’t get sick, he wouldn’t go into another world. He’d just show up at the bridge.

_Just keep calm, Quigley. Go to Violet. Nothing wrong is going to happen. Just get to the bridge._

_Get to the bridge._

_Get to…_

He felt that nothingness surround him, and he opened his eyes, seeing only black. For a few moments, he was in that space between.

He’d done it.

Then he felt a jolt as light suddenly surrounded him, and he let out a yelp, suddenly realizing he was standing on creaky wood, and he could hear the water again. He heard another surprised shout, and he turned to see Violet behind him, looking incredibly shocked. Then, after a second, she grinned and raced forwards, stopping just short of her friend. “You did it!”

Quigley just stared at her for a moment, feeling a bit… odd. “I…”

“Are you okay?”

“I… I don’t know.” he admitted, hugging himself slightly. “I…”

He’d done it, right? And nothing bad had happened. So why did he still feel… scared?

“Hey.” Violet said carefully. “You did it! That’s good.” She paused, then said, “Do you want a hug or something?”

“I think…” Quigley paused. “I wanna go back to throwing rocks.”

“We can do that from here.” Violet suggested. “Or toss some sticks off the bridge and see which one gets to the other side first.”

“Sounds like… fun, I guess.”

“Great! Let’s go get a bunch of twigs, then.”

She smiled at him, and after a hesitant second, he smiled back, and the two raced off.

 

_October 1984_

 

Violet and Quigley sat in the back of the bus, in complete silence, for what felt like an eternity.

When they’d calmed down enough, they hadn’t talked much; Violet had gotten together the money they’d gathered and paid for a bus to Chicago, and then the two of them sat down and hoped nobody pulled them aside or kicked them off the bus or paid too much attention to them. Thankfully, the bus wasn’t very full, and nobody seemed to care much about them.  

Violet had been staring out the window for a very long time, while Quigley just hugged his knees and focused on the back of the seat in front of them.

However, after what was probably a few hours, Violet turned towards Quigley and asked, “Are you okay?”

Quigley sighed, shutting his eyes and gripping his own arms. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. You had another episode. That’s _two_ in _two days_ , and I- I couldn’t even-”

Quigley turned to look at her, just as she glanced down at the ground and pushed her hair out of her face, looking incredibly upset. “Violet? Are you okay?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not the one who-”

“It _does_ matter. That guy-”  

“He was probably just someone who owned the house.” Violet said quietly. “Didn’t know what he was doing.”  

Quigley bit his lip, and then whispered, “I think I stabbed him.”  

“I think you did.” Violet replied, just as quietly.

Quigley shuddered, curling up more. “I… I just…”

“He’s probably not that hurt. He’ll probably be fine.”

“What if he’s _not_?”

“You’ll get over it.” Violet attempted to be comforting there, but she still sounded very shaken. “I’ve _killed_ people before, and I’m… it was to protect Klaus. And Sunny, and everyone else. You had to help me because I was being a fucking moron.”

“No, you weren’t! You would’ve gotten out of there.”

“I was stupid.” Violet said. “You were having a _fucking episode_ , and I couldn’t even get to you because he- he grabbed my _hair_ , my-” She ran a hand through her hair again, blinking back furious tears. “I never thought… and then he grabbed my- and I just _blanked._ I fucked up.”

“No, you didn’t! It wasn’t your fault!”

“Just admit it. I fucked up, and you ran off because you had an episode- you could’ve _died_. What if those men were from the Lab, and they grabbed you while you couldn’t see them? What if you ran into the road and got hit by a car? What if you ran into something dangerous, what if-”

“Violet-”

“What if the man who grabbed me had a tranquilizer?” Violet asked sharply. “What if he had a _gun_? I shouldn’t have let my guard down at all. We almost got caught-”

“Because of _me._ ” Quigley said. “I’m the one who had an episode, and keeps seeing this fucking Shadow Monster trying to kill me. If I hadn’t seen that, we would’ve been out of there before those men could even get near us.”

Violet paused, before turning to him in confusion. “Shadow Monster?”

Shit. He hadn’t mentioned that before. “Nothing.”

“ _Quigley!_ What the _hell_ is a Shadow Monster?”

“It’s… just this thing, in the Upside Down, that I’ve been seeing.”

“Was it there last year?”

“I don’t think so?”

“Then what the hell is it?”

“Maybe it’s just some manifestation of my insecurities or some bullshit like that.” Quigley shrugged. “It’s not like these visions are real.”

Violet paused, and then said, shakily, “What if they are?”

“Then we’re fucked.” Quigley muttered. “The Shadow wants to kill.”

“What?”  

“It wants to _kill_.” He said, hugging his knees tightly.

“To kill you?”

Quigley shook his head, shutting his eyes tight. “Not me.” he said, not sure how he knew, just knowing that he was right. “Everyone else.”

“Quigley-”

“The- the point is, this is my fault.” Quigley said quietly.

“No, it’s _mine_! I just… when he grabbed my shoulder-”

“That’s not your fault.”

“I should be over it.”

“Violet, we’re both fucked up!” Quigley struggled not to raise his voice, not to attract attention. “Neither of us are _over it_ , and we won’t be until we’re safe and our families are back together!”

“We’re almost there.” Violet muttered. “We’re almost… we’re…” She shut her eyes, struggling not to cry again. Then, finally, she said, with a broken voice, “I’m _sorry_.”

“ _I’m_ sorry.”

They glanced at each other, and then Violet held out a hand. Quigley took it, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, still shaking quite a bit. He placed his head against hers, and they sat in silence for a long while, both trying not to cry again, trying  to calm down, trying to keep themselves focused on the fact they might be close to safety.

They might be close to this all being over.

But, somehow, they didn’t think that was the case.


	9. Lovely Family Arguments

**CHAPTER NINE**

_Lovely Family Arguments_

 

“We’re doing a hotel tonight?” Duncan asked carefully.

Fiona nodded, checking everyone over to make sure they didn’t look too noticeable. “Remember. Carmelita and I do the talking-”

“We know the drill.” Klaus said quietly, barely looking up from Sunny, who was trying to fall asleep on his lap.

“Alright, then. Get a move on.” Fiona said.

They climbed out of the van, which Fiona had parked in the corner of the parking lot, hoping that nobody would look twice at it. Klaus carried his sister close as she still tried to sleep in his arms, huffing a bit as he almost tripped over a crack in the sidewalk. Duncan walked beside him, shivering a bit in the cold evening air. Isadora kept fiddling with anything she could get her hands on- her zipper, her gloves, her sleeves, the straps of her bag, looking quite distant. Carmelita was rambling on about something or another, walking side-by-side with Fiona, who seemed distracted by something.

They walked inside the hotel, and Fiona and Carmelita raced up to the counter, with Carmelita starting to chat with the employee, who seemed a bit bored. Klaus glanced at the triplets, before he said, “Should we sit down?”

“Could take a minute.” Duncan said, while Isadora just shrugged. “Might as well.”

They went to sit on a bench against the wall, and Klaus smiled as he noticed that Sunny had finally fallen asleep, slowly breathing and snoring slightly into his shirt.

“She looks so peaceful.” Isadora said, also noticing.

Klaus nodded, smiling down at his sister. “Hopefully she won’t have another nightmare.”

“Yeah, if she tries to kick something in her sleep and knocks a hole in the wall,” Duncan joked, “We’re gonna be in so much shit.”  

“Carmelita’ll never let us live that down.” Isadora said, staring at the wall, not looking entirely present in the conversation.

“I hope I don’t accidentally start lifting things in my sleep.” Klaus muttered, only half-jokingly as he held Sunny a bit closer. “That would definitely suck.”

“Just be really fucking glad I don’t emotionally manipulate people in my sleep.” Isadora said, hugging her knee and rocking slightly. “Feel like that could fuck someone over eventually.”

“I think we should just all be thankful Fiona doesn’t sleep-poison.” Duncan said.

“Oh, God, don’t bring that up, I’m gonna be paranoid for a week.” Isadora said.

“We’re already paranoid.” Duncan shrugged. “Might as well just add that to the list.”

They fell silent, and Klaus started rocking back-and-forth, hoping that might soothe his sister a bit more. Fiona and Carmelita were still talking to the woman at the counter, and after a moment, Klaus said, “I can take the couch this time.”

“No, no, you and Sunny can take one of the beds.” Duncan said quickly. “I can take the floor-”

“Fiona should probably get a bed.” Klaus said. “She usually takes the floor, it’s only fair.”

“If she lets us. I sometimes think she _likes_ sleeping on the ground.” Duncan said.

“Or she might just be super used to it.”

“We could let Carmelita use a bed, and then she wouldn’t bitch about how much she hates sleeping on the floor or on the couch or whatever.” Isadora shrugged.

“She should just be thankful we’ve got heat in here.” Klaus said. “I certainly am, it’s _cold_ outside.”

“Do you really think we’ll get to Florida before it snows?” Duncan asked.  

“Unless we find out where Moxie’s associates are and go to them.” Klaus said, sounding a bit distant there.

“You think Fiona’ll actually let us go find them?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Isadora asked. “So long as they’re not in a dangerous town, she’ll at least want to check them out.”

“Check them out?”

“You know, make sure they’re not secretly working for the Lab or whatever. Find out what Mallahan’s actually trying to do, if she might succeed or fail, all that jazz.” Isadora shrugged.

“What happens… what would happen if she failed?” Klaus asked carefully.

“We’d be fucked.” Isadora said.

“Don’t say stuff like that.” Duncan said. “She seems like a good investigative journalist.”

“You skimmed a few articles of hers and talked to her for five minutes.” Isadora said, sounding surprisingly bitter.

“She’ll help us. She’s got to.”

“It’d be nice if _someone_ was trying to help us.” Klaus muttered. “Cause we don’t know what we’re doing.”

“We’re surviving.” Isadora said. “That’s what matters.”

Fiona glanced towards them, and waved. The three kids sighed, knowing that this was her signal that they were almost ready.

“You take the bed, okay?” Duncan said, putting a hand over Klaus’s. “You and Sunny.”

Klaus glanced at him, his voice getting quiet. “Are you sure-?”

“Course.” Duncan glanced at his watch. “They better hurry. It’s getting close to 7:00.”

Isadora flinched and curled up, but before the boys could notice, Carmelita and Fiona walked over. “It’s not a great room, but it’s what they had empty tonight.” Fiona said. “Two beds, a couch, I’ll take the floor-”

“You can take a bed.” Duncan offered quickly, as they slowly got to their feet. “You always take the floor.”

“Floor’s more comfortable.” Fiona said quickly. “It’s fine, really.”

“Can we just get to the room?” Klaus asked quietly. “It’s almost time to call.”

Isadora glanced away, and Fiona nodded, and Carmelita said, “I got dibs on the shower first.”

As they started to head upstairs, though, Klaus held back so he could walk besides Fiona.

“Fi?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Where are we going?”

She was silent for a moment, and then said, “Somewhere safe. Promise.”

That was not the answer Klaus had wanted.

 

Klaus sat on the bed, rocking back and forth and fiddling with the walkie-talkie. Carmelita had opted out of the call, instead rushing to the bathroom, where she’d probably be for the next hour. Fiona was checking the room over- making sure the windows and doors were all locked, looking for any possible recording devices, all that fun stuff she did every time they stayed anywhere that wasn’t the van. Klaus had placed Sunny on a pillow, where she was still sleeping, and Duncan and Isadora sat at the edge of a bed, where Isadora was writing in her notebook and Duncan was nervously watching Klaus.

Once the clock hit 7:10, Klaus quickly held up the radio, saying, “Alright, it’s Day Three-Hundred and Fifty. Not much happened today, but we got a hotel tonight, that’s pretty good! Uh, we’ve mostly just been driving all day, but we’re… getting somewhere.” Klaus glanced at Fiona, who was too busy looking over the window to notice. “We’re hoping to head somewhere where we don’t have to deal with snow. I hope you have the same plans, I wouldn’t want you to… to freeze or something.”

He glanced over at Sunny, smiling slightly. “Sunny’s asleep. She’s gonna be pissed I didn’t wake her up, but… it’s nice to get sleep when you can, right? She’d probably just tell you that she…” his breath caught a bit in his throat. “She loves you. And she really hope you’re safe, and that you’ll find us soon.”

Klaus shut his eyes, gripping the radio. “You… you promised you’d find us. It’s been almost a year, Vi. Almost a _year_. When are you going to come get us?” He glanced up at the others, as Fiona slowly turned to face him, looking a bit concerned. After a moment, he said, “I just… please find us soon.”

He handed the radio over to Duncan, blinking back tears and moving back so he was closer to his sleeping sister. Duncan paused for a moment, glancing towards Isadora, who was staring at her notebook like she was trying to burn a hole in it with just her eyes.

“Uh, hey, Quigley.” Duncan said quietly. “We’re… we’re still here. Day Three-fifty. That’s… pretty wild. Like… like Klaus said, nothing much happened today. Just driving. Still not sure I like it much. Fiona wants to teach me to drive, but I suck at it, so I’ll just leave that to everyone else. Even Sunny’s better than me, and she’s a _baby_.”

“To be fair,” Fiona said, moving to sit beside Isadora, “Sunny’s very good at everything.”

“Except being patient.” Klaus said, smiling slightly and glancing at his sister. “Or listening to anyone.”

“Well…” Duncan shrugged. “Anyway, we’re trying to find someone who can help. I think we told you that, but once we get into town we might be able to find something that’ll help us find him. And then once we’re all safe, everything’s going to be okay, and you can find us. You’ll… you’ll find us soon. Promise, okay?”

He took a breath, glancing away, and then he said, “Oh! Isadora went driving with Fiona today. She can tell you about that.”

“What?” Isadora’s head shot up, shocked.

“Yeah, here you go.” Duncan tried to pass the radio to her, only to look quite upset when she pushed it away.

“No, no, there’s nothing much to say.” Isadora said, moving back a little. “It’s just boring driving shit.”

“Come on, I’m sure he’ll want to hear it.”

“No. You keep talking.”

“I was basically done anyway.”

“Duncan-” Fiona began.

“Come on, Isa, just _talk to him-_ ”

“No!” Isadora snapped, suddenly shouting. She paused as Duncan shrunk back, shocked, and then she glanced down at her lap, letting her hair fall over her face. Klaus and Fiona both shrunk back, too, as she said, in a very shaky voice, “Please don’t make me do this.”

There was a long silence, before Duncan slowly held up the walkie-talkie, and said, “We’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

He shut off the radio, placing it carefully on the table inbetween beds. Then, slowly, he turned towards his sister.

“Isadora?”

“Don’t make me do this.” Isadora curled up, hugging her knee.

“Do what?”

“Talk to him like he’s gonna answer.”

Duncan sat next to her, glancing nervously towards Klaus. “He… he might be listening, Isadora. He’s gonna want to hear from you, it’s been weeks-”

“He’s not _listening_ , Duncan. How would he be _listening_?”

“Isadora.” Fiona said quietly. “When I said you should be honest, I didn’t mean- now’s not a great time-”

“Isadora, please, he could be! That’s all that matters, that he might hear us!” Duncan raised his voice slightly. “Him or Violet!”

“It’s fucking useless, Duncan!” Isadora yelled. “What are the chances he’s in range and thinks to listen to us?”

“If there’s even the _smallest_ chance, do you want to risk missing him?”

“Guys, quiet down, you’ll wake Sunny.” Klaus said, shrinking back a little and trying not to look at anyone else.

“People in other rooms might be able to hear you.” Fiona added, looking very thrown-off.

“Duncan.” Isadora said, trying to keep herself calm, clenching her fists. “I don’t want to call anymore. You can do whatever you want, but don’t force me to do anything.”

“I’m not _forcing_ you, Isadora, I’m _asking._ Don’t you want to talk to Quigley?”

“It’s been a year, Duncan. If he wanted to talk to us, he would.”

“We don’t know what’s happening to him! He and Violet are still trying to find us-”

“Shut up.” Isadora said. “Stop trying to talk me into this. I’ve told you, I don’t want to talk.”

“Isadora-”

“Stop it.” Klaus said, raising his hands to his ears. “Stop it!”

“Everyone calm down.” Fiona stood up, trying to get control back as fast as possible. “Duncan, don’t make your sister do anything. Isadora, try not to piss off Duncan and Klaus.”

Duncan promptly ignored her. “Quigley’s still out there.” His voice broke slightly. “He’s out there and he needs us.”

“He’s been on his own for a year, he’s clearly doing alright.” Isadora crossed her arms and glared at the ground.

“Isadora,” Duncan got loud again, clearly on the edge of tears. “Why are you giving _up_ on him?”

“Because he’s _dead!_ ”

Everyone froze for a moment, as Isadora stared at Duncan, her face falling as he stepped back, shocked and hurt, still barely keeping from crying. Fiona instantly tensed up, as if preparing to stop a fight. Klaus went pale, and stopped breathing for a moment.

And then they heard a quiet, “No.”

They turned to see Sunny, sitting up on the bed, eyes wide.

“Sunny!” Klaus reached towards her, but she backed up, shaking her head. “Sunny, how long have you-”

“Manes.” Sunny said. _“He’s not dead. Quigley and Violet are alive.”_

“They’ve had a year, and an empathic connection, and whatever extrasensory shit they’ve got.” Isadora said, shutting her eyes. “And Quigley could fucking teleport. They’re not gonna find us. We’re on our own.”

“No, they’re going to find us, or we’ll find them.” Duncan said quietly. “We’ll find them.”

“I’m sorry.” Isadora said, on the edge of tears herself. “But we can’t just keep _pretending_ they’re gonna show up.”

“No!” Sunny said again, glaring at the girl. “No!”

“Sunny’s right, they’ll find us, something must just be keeping them.” Klaus said. “Violet wouldn’t abandon us, and she wouldn’t- it’s not like she-”

“No!” Sunny repeated, throwing her hands over her ears. “No!”

“Klaus-” Isadora began.

“Violet’s not _dead!_ ” Klaus surprised himself by how loud he got. “Violet’s _alive_ and she’s going to find us! She _promised_!”

“Look.” Fiona said. “We all need to calm down. We shouldn’t be-”

“We’re not going to _calm down_!” Klaus said. “Isadora just wants to give up on our siblings!”

“I’m not giving up on them! They’re gone!” Isadora snapped. “I’ve had to deal with this shit before! Duncan and I thought for weeks that maybe our parents were alive, too, maybe those bodies were fake, too, maybe everything would go back to normal. But our parents are _dead_ , and I can’t feel Quigley, and-”

“Violet’s _alive_!”

“And so’s Quigley.” Duncan said, his voice getting quieter.

“How long are you going to keep thinking that?” Isadora asked coldly.

“Tace!” Sunny shouted, starting to sob. _“Shut up! Shut up!”_

“Everyone stop!” Fiona shouted. “We’re all stressed and scared, and I get that-”

“No, you _don’t_!” Klaus suddenly felt like something inside of him broke. “You don’t get it at all! You haven’t got a _fucking_ family!”

Fiona stared at him in shock for a moment, and then Klaus suddenly felt awful.

Everyone jumped as a door behind them opened, and they turned to see Carmelita emerge from the bathroom, looking very confused. “Hey, were you guys-” she began.

Klaus lifted a still-sobbing Sunny in his arms and bolted, racing past Carmelita into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

There was a deathly silence, and then Carmelita said, “Were you guys fighting or something?”  

“Yeah.” Fiona said, still sounding a bit stunned.

“Who won?”

“Not the time, Mel.” Isadora muttered, looking anywhere but at her brother.

“Whatever. Is this gonna be a thing?”

“I’m…” Duncan began, and then he said. “I’ll take the radio tonight, if _someone_ doesn’t want it.”

He grabbed it from the table, and moved past Isadora, who just slumped against the wall. After a moment, Fiona sat on a chair under the window, shutting her eyes and breathing slowly. Duncan moved to his bag, managing to shove the radio in and pull out his blanket before he started crying.

 

Klaus and Sunny were leaning against the bathroom wall, staring up at the ceiling, when they heard a gentle knock on the door.

“You alright in there?” Fiona asked.

“Go away.” Klaus said, putting one arm around Sunny and the other over his knees, the two of them curling up against each other.

“It’s been a while. Are you okay?”

“Go _away._ ”

“Klaus Baudelaire, if you don’t open this door, I’m breaking it down.”

“Gonna be hard.” Klaus called. “Sunny’s in here, you can’t just toss her at it.”

“I can get in without her. You think I don’t know how to knock down a door?”

Klaus let out a sigh, glancing down at Sunny, whose eyes were still red. Hesitantly, he looked over at the door, and focused as hard as he could. After a minute, the lock clicked, and Klaus leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes as Fiona creaked the door open.

“Hey.” she said, shutting the door behind her and then awkwardly sitting across from the two siblings. She was silent for a moment, quietly bouncing her leg, before saying, “So. Um…”

“Is everyone still mad?” Klaus asked quietly.

Fiona paused. “Isadora and Duncan haven’t said anything since- and Carmelita’s already asleep. So… you, uh-”

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Klaus said quietly.

Fiona tried to meet his eye, but he kept staring at the wall. “We were all stressed.”

“I’m sorry I… I said that you…” Klaus shut his eyes.

“Look. I…” Fiona took a deep breath. “I know I don’t fully… get it. I never had a… since I’ve been on the run, I haven’t had any family members who’d be trying to find me. It’s a bit hard to… to understand. And I’m sorry if I seem… dismissive.”

“It’s not your fault.” Klaus bit his lip nervously, and then said, “Do… do you agree with her?”

Fiona didn’t answer for a long while. Then, she said, “It doesn’t matter what I think. What do you think?”

“I…” Klaus held his baby sister tighter. “I think there’s nothing that can stop Violet when she puts her mind to something. She’d fight death itself for us, and we’d do the same for her.”

“Then you keep on calling her.” Fiona said. Then, hesitantly, she added, “Just… maybe don’t force Isadora to do it, too.”

Klaus and Sunny both glared at the ground.

“Look. She’s just as upset as the rest of you, and this… it doesn’t mean she loves her brother any less than the rest of you love your siblings. She’s just… hurt and scared, like all of us.”

“Valiente.” Sunny muttered. _“You’re not scared.”_

Fiona glanced at the toddler, and then said, “I… look, I’m in charge, so I can’t really _be_ scared. But I’m… I’m scared something will happen to you, and I won’t be able to help. I’m scared the Lab will find us before we can find safety. I-”

Klaus sharply looked up at her, and then said, “Where are we really going?”

Silence for a moment. Then Fiona said, “Nowhere. We’re just checking up on some things before we head South.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Klaus and Sunny shared a look, and then Fiona said, “Klaus, Sunny, for… for what it’s worth… if you think Violet is out there, then I’m sure she’ll find you. We’ll protect her, too.”

“We’ll protect each other.” Klaus said quietly, and Sunny leaned up against him.

Fiona smiled at him, and nodded. “Yeah.”

She leaned forwards and gave the siblings a quick hug, and while Sunny let her, surprised at how much she let herself relax, Klaus just stiffened and flinched back slightly.

Fiona didn’t seem to notice, or if she did, she didn’t mention anything as she pulled away and said, “Let’s get some sleep, yeah?”

Klaus nodded, picking up Sunny. He watched Fiona for a moment, as if waiting for her to finally admit where they were going, but she just turned and left, and he slowly followed her out of the bathroom.

He glanced around briefly as he sat on the bed, his heart sinking as he saw Duncan curled up in one corner of the room, his blanket pulled around his shoulders and his headphones on, and Isadora in the opposite corner, pretending to be asleep. Carmelita was on the other bed, sleeping softly, while Fiona just sat on the ground, staring at the wall.

Klaus watched everyone for a moment, wondering if anybody was going to say anything.

Then he just turned away and gave Sunny another hug.

“She’ll find us.” he whispered, only loud enough for her to hear. “We know it, right?”  

“Righ.” Sunny muttered.

_She’ll find us._

_She’s got to._


	10. Violet has a Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was fun because I got to write in my favorite cliche as well as a shitton of angst + my favorite flashback segment thus far.

**CHAPTER TEN**

_Violet has a Bad Day_

 

They reached Chicago pretty late in the evening. Violet and Quigley got off the bus, leaning against a wall and watching everyone else depart. Quigley flinched at the noise, still feeling incredibly on edge, even after the long ride. Violet pulled her ribbon off her wrist and tied back her hair, not looking as calm as she normally did when that happened.

“We need to find someplace safe fast, or we’ll miss the call today.” Quigley said blankly, hugging himself and not meeting Violet’s eye.

“We can duck into an alley for the call.” Violet said. “But it might be easier to just sleep in an abandoned building.”

“You think there’ll be some nearby?”

“Yeah.” Violet nodded. “I can find one for us.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Then what _good_ _am I_?”

Quigley jumped, looking towards her in shock. “Violet-”

“Let’s just go, okay?”

“Violet, you’re-”

“Are you coming with me or not?”

Quigley watched her, holding back tears as he nodded.

“Grab my hand, we don’t want to get separated in the crowd.” Violet said, shutting her eyes. “I’ll find us someplace safe for tonight. Then we’ll find that library Kit works for in the morning.”

 

They found a building just in time.

They’d had to duck down several streets that neither of them were very comfortable walking through; everything was dark and dirty and occasionally someone else would give them a strange look as they passed, and Violet kept gripping tighter onto Quigley’s hand, edging closer, as if she was trying to place herself between him and anything that might hurt them.

She stopped in front of an old warehouse, and they went in through a window, not sure if they wanted to waste energy breaking in through a door. There were only two floors, and only a few rooms on each floor, but the rooms were pretty huge. It was filthy and cold, but it was better than some of the places they’d been before.

The two teens walked up the creaky stairs to the second floor and found what they felt was the warmest room, and then Violet pulled out the radio, placing her hands on it while Quigley curled up, pulling his coat over himself.

“We might’ve missed the beginning.” Violet warned.

Quigley shrugged.

The radio finally flickered to life.

_“Sunny’s asleep. She’s gonna be pissed I didn’t wake her up, but… it’s nice to get sleep when you can, right? She’d probably just tell you that she… she loves you. And she really hopes you’re safe, and that you’ll find us soon.”_

Violet bit her lip, trying desperately to keep her focus on the radio.

 _“You… you promised you’d find us. It’s been almost a year, Vi. Almost a_ year. _When are you going to come get us?”_

“Klaus…”  

_“I just… please find us soon.”_

Violet let out a small sob, temporarily losing her connection. “Violet?” Quigley asked, looking up sharply. She shook her head, and then put her hands back on the radio, desperately trying to get the connection back.

By the time she did, they heard Duncan’s voice. _“-pretty wild. Like… like Klaus  said, nothing much happened today. Just driving. Still not sure I like it much.”_

“Get that.” Quigley muttered, still looking cautiously at Violet.

 _“Fiona wants to teach me to drive but I suck at it, so I’ll just leave that to everyone else. Even Sunny’s better than me, and she’s a_ baby.”

 _“To be fair,”_ they heard a distant voice say, one they rarely heard- Fiona, they thought, _“Sunny’s very good at everything.”_

Violet tried to hold back tears as she heard Klaus add, _“Except being patient. Or listening to anyone.”_

_“Well… anyway, we’re trying to find someone who can help. I think we told you that, but once we get into to town, we might be able to find something that’ll help us find him. And then once we’re all safe, everything’s going to be okay, and you can find us.”_

“We’re close.” Quigley muttered, hugging himself tighter. “We’re closer than you are, probably.”

_“You’ll… you’ll find us soon. Promise, okay?”_

“Promise.” Quigley said quickly, also putting his hand on the radio, while Violet still struggled not to cry. “I promise, I-”

_“Oh! Isadora went driving with Fiona today. She can tell you about that.”_

Quigley perked up, looking excited, only to deflate when he heard a shocked, _“What?”_

_“Yeah, here you go.”_

_“No, no, there’s nothing much to say. It’s just boring driving shit.”_

Violet opened her eyes, hesitantly glancing at Quigley, her heart sinking as she saw him backing up, hurt in his eyes.

_“Come on, I’m sure he’ll want to hear it.”_

_“No. You keep talking-”_

“Shut it off.” Quigley said.

“Quig-”

“Shut it _off._ ”

Violet pulled her hands off the radio, watching it as the sounds of some kind of argument died out.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Quigley said, his voice breaking, “Well. Today was just _fucking_ fantastic, wasn’t it?”

“That it was.” Violet said bitterly, shoving the radio back into her bag. “You wanna take first watch?”

“Who gives a shit?” Quigley muttered.

“Quigley. We’re in a dangerous neighborhood, alone with bags of supplies. We’re going to need-”

“I don’t care. We’re going to die anyway.”

Violet sighed, then moved closer to Quigley, holding out her hand. He didn’t take it, instead burying his head in his knees, and so she retracted her arm and said, “Quigley. We’re so close. Once Kit helps us, we’ll be free. We’ll find them, and-”

“Isadora won’t talk to me.” Quigley stated.

“I’m sure-”

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.” he started to cry. “I lost her and I-I’m never going to be okay again, I’m just gonna keep seeing this shit until I die-”

“Quigley-”

“What if we can’t stop them?” Quigley cried. “What if we can’t stop them an-and they kill us, or capture us again? What if they take us away?”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“But what if it _does_? What if they take us back and start the tests again, and- and- and-”

Quigley finally looked up at Violet, tears streaming down his face. “Violet, I’d rather die.”

Violet watched him for a moment, and then glanced down at the floor, and said, in a voice just as choked up as his, “Me, too.”

Quigley curled up and cried some more, and after a moment, Violet did the same.

 

_March 1984_

 

They’d gotten very off-track. They’d managed to find out that Violet’s Mother had lived in Michigan temporarily in some foster home, and they’d managed to find her next one in Colorado, but after that she’d gone to Hawkins, and Violet and Quigley really didn’t want to return there. However, they did find the name of her final foster parent- Armstrong Feint- as well as some of her foster siblings, who’d been listed in the newspaper article about her adoption.

“Ellington’s the one without a number.” Violet had said, having taken Quigley’s notebook, busy sketching what she remembered of the pictures of the children she’d found in the Lab. “Then there were the two older kids and two boys around Mother’s age, one of which was Olaf, right?” After Quigley had nodded, she repeated, “Ellie was the one who didn’t have a number, and she was the one with the locket, unless there was another _EF_ running around the Lab. That would put the other three kids as the Snickets.”

“Kit’s obviously the girl.” Quigley had said. “And I’d be willing to bet Jacques’s the other teen; his name was listed first, you’d think that would mean he’s older. Do you remember anything else from that… what did you call it?”

“ESP Fever Dream.” Violet responded, and the two of them had laughed a little. “Well, that sounds about right. I think I remember her saying that One was dead- which would knock off Jacques, I guess. I don’t remember what she said about Kit, but I think she said Ellie and Lemony got out.”

“And you’re sure this was your ESP, and not some weird imagination thing?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Violet had glanced away then. “But it at least gives us a head  start. Find out what happened to Kit and Lemony Snicket and Ellington Feint.”

That was a lot easier said than done, even with Violet constantly slipping into her extrasensory perceptions to try and find a direction to go. But it had just gotten worse just that day, as Violet had fucked up while messing with security cameras, and they’d tripped some kind of alarm while stealing food. They’d had to climb out the window- Quigley wasn’t confident he could teleport more than one person yet- and grab a random bus, getting as far out of town as they could, which put them roughly in the opposite direction from the next city they were headed towards, which neither of them were very happy about.

They were sitting on the roof of some kind of closed restaurant, which looked to have been abandoned for quite some time. Violet was staring down at the street below, fiddling with the ribbon in her hands. Quigley was just rocking slightly, looking up at the night sky, too cloudy to reliably see the stars or moon. Which sucked quite a bit, it meant they were in near darkness.

“We’ll have to get up early tomorrow.” Violet said, glancing down at her ribbon. “We don’t have enough money for another bus, but we can sneak on, probably. Think you can teleport the two of us-?”

“I’m not sure.” Quigley said. “We can try, but we can’t rely on that. We haven’t done it before, and… we don’t even know if we _can._ I never could in the…”

“I can always try stealing a car, but I only know the basics of driving.” Violet said.

Quigley flinched. “I’d rather not.”

“If we don’t have another option-”

“I _really_ don’t want to be in a normal car. Buses are bad enough.”

Violet glanced at him. “What?”

“I… when they… they got me, they… my parents were driving me home, and-”

“Oh.” Violet bit her lip, then said, “I… get that.”  

“You…” Quigley paused. “You said they set your house on fire?”

“Yeah. Mother was immune, though, so she found us.” Violet sighed. “That was probably their plan. Smoke us out, shoot the parents, take the kids. Make the deaths look like an accident.”

Quigley wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that.

“I just…” Violet shut her eyes. “There’s so much our parents never told us. So much we still don’t know. We don’t know why they decided to leave, what exactly happened to them, what the _fuck_ was up with those tunnels-”

“From what you’ve said about the tunnels,” Quigley said, “It sounded like some kind of underground system. Like for spies or something.”

“God, if our parents turn out to be _spies_ in addition to all of this, I’m going to break into the afterlife just to scream at them myself.” Violet said.

“At…  at least we know they had good intentions towards the end.” Quigley muttered, holding back tears. “They got us out, they were trying to keep the Lab from us.”

“I guess.” Violet said. “But still-”

She let out a gasp, then, as her ribbon slipped from her fingers. She reached forwards, managing to grab it before it fell out of her reach, but unfortunately she leaned a bit too far, and started to lose her balance.

“Holy shit!” Quigley yelled, reaching over and grabbing her shoulder, pulling her back before she could fall. “Vi! Oh my God, are you alright? Holy fuck-”

To his surprise, instead of looking scared or surprised, Violet completely froze over.

“Violet? Are you okay?”

Her eyes were blank for a moment, and then fear finally shone through. Quietly, she said, “Let go of my shoulder.”

Quigley paused, glancing at his hand. He retracted it, saying, “I-I’m sorry, did I-?”

“Don’t _touch me_!” she said, shutting her eyes, starting to shake.

“Violet?”

“I…” Violet briefly glanced towards him, before her eyes darted away, looking everywhere. “I have to go. I’ll take first watch.”

“Violet-”

She bolted, racing across the roof and through the door that led to the stairwell. Quigley watched her go, suddenly feeling incredibly awful.

 

_October 1984_

 

Violet rocked back-and-forth, staring at the wall.

She hadn’t slept all night, hadn’t even bothered waking Quigley for his watch. She just kept looking into nothing and thinking over what had happened that morning, what she might have done differently. Maybe she should’ve insisted they teleport. Maybe they could’ve snuck out the back door instead of through the window. Maybe she could’ve run faster, stopped Quigley from getting too far away.

Maybe she shouldn’t have flipped when that guy grabbed her.

Violet slowly stood up, moving over to the wall, peering into the window, squinting to see her reflection looking back at her. She stared hard at it, looking at the faded bruise on her cheek from when she’d been running and slammed into a wall last week, and the scar above her eye, from an incident in a bus to Maryland a while back. Her hair fell over her shoulders, into her face; her _stupid_ hair wouldn’t stay out of her face.

She’d never thought someone would grab her hair while she was running. She’d never even _considered_ it. How _fucking_ stupid was she? Someone could’ve caught her _ages_ ago if they’d managed to get a hold of her dumb hair. She’d been growing it out of… what? Out of spite? Out of anger? Out of some desperation to pretend everything was normal?

She knew that they were close to this all being over. But it didn’t feel like it at all.

And nothing was ever going to be normal again.

Violet gripped the windowsill, shaking slightly as tears sprang to her eyes.

She was so _stupid._ She was never going to have her life back. Even if the Lab got shut down, and her siblings came back, what the _hell_ would happen to her then? Would Kit let them stay with her? There was no way she’d be able to care for all of them. Would they get shipped off to some relative they’d never heard of? Thrown into the foster system? And that was just if they succeeded in taking down the Lab. So many things could go wrong…

And above it all, nothing could be close to normal ever again, because her parents were gone. And not just because they were dead. Because she’d learned, over the course of the unfortunate events that happened to her, that she never knew them at all. And it was too late to do anything about it. She could never actually find out who they were, she could only guess.

_And whose fault is that?_

Violet let out a cry, still gripping tight onto the windowsill. Her hair was in her face again, stretching across her cheeks, falling into her eyes. She hated it. She _hated_ this. All of this.

She suddenly released the sill, and raced to her bag, digging through it before she could even think about what she was doing. She finally reached the small box that had fallen to the bottom, pulling it out and opening up the sewing kit. She had two pairs of scissors in there, but she just needed the bigger pair. At least she assumed. She wasn’t really thinking.

_This is a bad idea._

_Fuck it._

Violet raced back to the window, staring at her faint reflection again, her stupid hair still falling into her face.

Before she could stop and think rationally, or calm down enough to consider what she was doing, Violet grabbed a stand of hair, lifted the scissors, and started cutting.

She didn’t stop once she started, knowing that once she paused she’d have to think about what she was doing. She didn’t even stop to even out the length, or figure out how short she wanted it all, she just grabbed strands of hair and started chopping them off as fast as she could. She didn’t care what she was doing, didn’t care if it looked decent or if this was a good idea. She just wanted it _gone_ , she couldn’t let it be a weakness for her, she couldn’t get caught again, she couldn’t… she…

“Violet?”  

Violet froze for a moment, staring into the window for a short moment, the world catching up to her. Her stomach dropped, and she looked behind her, seeing that Quigley had apparently woken up sometime while she wasn’t paying attention, and was now on his feet, looking very worried.

Slowly, she looked down at the ground, seeing strands of hair littering the area around her feet.

_Oh my God._

The scissors clattered to the floor.

_Oh my God…_

Violet raised her arms, feeling the edges of her hair, staring at her window reflection in shock. Her hair was still falling over her shoulders, but only just long enough to do so, and it was cut unevenly, some of it much shorter than she’d intended or longer than the rest.

What… what was she _thinking?_

After only a few seconds, Quigley was there, grabbing her hand. “Hey, hey! It’s okay! It’s okay, we-”  

“Wh-what did I-” Violet was shaking again, not feeling entirely _there_. “I just-”

“It’s okay! It’s okay, let me help.” Quigley said. “Just sit down, I can fix it.”

_I can fix it._

Violet just stared ahead as Quigley glanced over her hair. “Do you want me to help?” he asked cautiously.

It took Violet a second to process his question, and then she just shut her eyes and nodded.

 

_March 1984_

 

Quigley paused outside the door, waiting. Violet had ducked into an empty kitchen, and he’d given her a few minutes, knowing that he liked to be alone when he was feeling like shit, so she’d probably expect the same courtesy. But he also was itching to apologize for whatever it was he did, and to make sure she was alright. He’d never seen her like that before, never seen her so _upset_. She’d rarely looked that scared in front of him; though, then again, it wasn’t as if she had much opportunity. It wasn’t as if they talked much about what scared _her_. He’d ask sometimes, but she’d just shrug it off. He felt bad about that, but he hated pressing the issue when she didn’t want to talk.

Well, he’d have to, or he might make her upset again on accident. And he didn’t want that at all. Finally, he managed to psych himself up enough to slowly edge open the door, peering inside the room.

As he did, he realized that he could hear her talking, in a low murmur.

“I don’t give a _shit_. I just want to know how the real Klaus is doing.”

Quigley froze for a moment, trying to process what that might mean. Then he carefully walked in, spotting her sitting on a dusty counter, running a hand through her hair and staring at the wall.

“Then work _differently._ Make yourself better. Come on, what do I have to do?” she muttered. Then, after a moment, “Shut _up_ , I just-”

“Violet?”

Violet jumped, whipping around, a guilty look behind her eyes. Quigley flinched, but Violet didn’t seem _too_ upset, just a bit surprised; after a moment, she sighed and turned back, and Quigley jumped onto the counter to sit beside her.

“So. Um... “ Quigley hesitated. “Who were… who were you talking to?”

“No one.”

“It kinda… sounded like someone.”

Violet shut her eyes. “This is gonna sound crazy.”

“Well…” Quigley smiled slightly. “I fell into an alternate dimension a few months ago, so nothing’ll sound too bad.”

She was silent for a long time, and then said, “When I use my ESP, sometimes it… appears in the form of my brother. It’s like he’s talking to me, telling me things. And it… it feels so _real_ , like he’s really there! But I _know_ he’s not… but it’s better than not talking to him at _all._ ”

There was a long pause, as Quigley processed this. Then, he said, “Doesn’t sound that crazy. Just a side-effect of your powers, yeah?”

“Maybe.”

Another long pause. Then, Quigley said, “Wh… whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize _you_ didn’t like being touched, I thought-”

“It’s not physical contact that’s the problem.” Violet muttered, kicking her legs and hugging herself. “It’s… it’s just the shoulder, I think, was the issue.”

“I’m sorry-”

“You didn’t know.” Violet glanced down, watching her feet swing back-and-forth. “I- _I_ didn’t know. I just… it’s just, when you grabbed my shoulder, I just felt so _scared_ and _powerless_ and it’s not your fault but I don’t know what happened and-”

“It’s okay.” Quigley said. That feeling happened to him quite a lot.

“No, it’s _not._ ” Violet said. She hugged herself tighter, shutting her eyes, refusing to look his way. “It’s _not_ okay.”

“Violet, you’ve been through a lot.”

“Not as much as you.”

Quigley stared at her. “Violet-?”

“You went through _so much worse_.” Violet said, her voice breaking slightly. “You were there for almost _three months_ , and then you were dying in a hell-dimension while getting hunted by a monster. I was there a _week_ , and then went upside-down for maybe an hour.”

“Violet, that doesn’t matter!” Quigley said quickly. “It doesn’t matter how _much_ shit happened to you, it still hurt you!”

“I shouldn’t be like this.” Violet muttered. “I need to be the strong one. I’ve gotta protect you, I’ve gotta get this done so I can protect Klaus and Sunny-”

“Violet, hey.” Quigley moved closer to her, wanting to grab her hand but not wanting to startle her more. “Hey. You don’t have to-”

“I have to protect you all. I have to-”

“Violet.” Quigley held out his palm, waiting until Violet spotted it and slowly edged her hand into his. “Violet. You don’t have to hide like this. You can talk to me about… about the shit they did to you.”

“It’ll sound dumb.” Violet muttered. “You went through worse.”

“It’s _not_ dumb.” Quigley assured her. “It hurt you. No matter how much happened to you, it still must’ve been terrifying, and… and you shouldn’t be scared to talk about it. And I’ll listen. I’ll try to help.”

“I shouldn’t put this on you. You’ve been through enough-”

“So have you! And you listen to me, all the time. Let me listen to you.”

Violet squeezed his hand, and then finally glanced over at him, looking close to tears. “Quigley-”

“Let me help.”

Violet stared for an instant, as if trying to figure out if he actually meant it, and then she leaned forwards and hugged him as tight as she could. Quigley hugged her back, and realized after a moment that she’d started to sob. He shut his eyes and hugged her tighter, and he said, “It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay, we’re going to make it through this.” 

“They-they killed them.” she managed to choke out. “They killed them. They were going to kill me. They were going to… they… they…”

She continued to weep, and they kept hugging for a very long time.

 

_October 1984_

 

“Just keep looking forwards.”

Violet bit her lip, wringing her hands slightly as they sat on the floor. She was watching the wall as Quigley positioned himself behind her with a hairbrush and the scissors, trying to even out the mess she’d made.

“I… I don’t know what I was thinking.” Violet muttered. “I just…”

“It’s okay.” Quigley said quickly. “It’s okay, you… neither of us have really been super happy recently, have we?”

“But I… I shouldn’t have- Quigley, I just…”

“You don’t have to explain.” Quigley said quietly, before cutting another strand of hair. “How short do you want it?”

“I don’t care.”

“Okay, uh. I’ll just… figure it out.” They were silent for a moment, with Violet still playing with her hands and Quigley quietly cutting her hair into an even length.

After a while, Quigley said, “You know, uh, my… my siblings and I used to cut each others’ hair.” Violet didn’t respond, so he continued, “Our parents used to do it, but we finally convinced them we could do it ourselves a- a few years ago. Duncan sucked at it, though, so Isadora would cut mine and I’d cut his, and then Isa liked her hair long, so we’d give her some fun style. Like a million braids, or we’d try different ponytails we saw on TV, or we’d play with barrettes. Sometimes… sometimes when we were in town, Duncan would sketch hairstyles he saw on other people to try out on her. We fucked it up a lot, but she never minded, so long as we didn’t make her go out in public looking like that.”

Quigley fell silent, then, and Violet whispered, “Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, it… it was.”

Neither of them spoke for the next few moments, as Quigley kept cutting her hair. Then he said, “I think I got it. You need a better mirror than the window, though. I think I’ve got one in my bag, hold on.”

He raced towards his bag, and Violet just kept sitting in silence. She shut her eyes, shaking slightly, not daring to touch her hair and find out how short it had gotten. She wasn’t going to cry, not now. Even though she’d just chopped off her hair, she’d just gotten rid of the one thing the Lab hadn’t taken away from her, she’d just completely _snapped_ and started chopping away before she could even think…

“Got it!” Quigley called, before running back with a small handheld mirror. “Was at the bottom of the bag. Uh, what… what do you think?”

Violet hesitated as he handed her the mirror, a pang of fear suddenly filling her chest. She was frozen for a good few seconds, and then slowly held the mirror up to look at herself.

Oh.

She reached up to touch her hair, holding the mirror with the other hand. It was about as short as she’d expected it to be- it was just barely missing her shoulders, now- but she hadn’t expected to realize, as she looked in the mirror, how much older she looked.

She almost looked like Mother.

“Is it okay?” Quigley asked. “I wasn’t sure…”

“It’s…” Violet paused. Once she got past the initial shock, and actually examined her reflection, she allowed herself a smile. “Pretty.”

“Really?”

Violet glanced towards him, smiling a bit more. “What? Do you not like it?”

“No! I mean, yeah! Yeah, I think it’s pretty!” Quigley said quickly. “Really pretty, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t, like, lying or anything and I actually suck at this-”

“Quigley, chill.”

“O-Okay.” Quigley glanced over at her. “It… it really does look nice, I think.”

She ran a hand through her hair again, nodding. “It's wonderful. Thank you.”  

“It’s really no problem. It’s not that hard, once you get the hang of-”

“I meant,” Violet hesitated for only a moment before dropping the mirror on the ground and holding her hand out, “Thanks for… being here.”

Quigley fell silent for a moment, before grabbing her hand. “It’s nothing.”

It wasn’t nothing, and both of them knew it. It was far from nothing.

“We should get going.” Violet said quietly.

“Probably. We’ll need to find a map, it’s a big city.”

“I could-”

“We’ll find a map. You shouldn’t stress yourself out.”

Violet bit her lip, and then nodded. “Well. Let’s go find Kit. We're almost done.” 


	11. The Gang has another Fun Fight

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

_The Gang has another Fun Fight_

 

“So.” Carmelita said, “Is anyone going to say anything? At all?”

They were in the van again, as Fiona was driving them into town. They were going to stop by the Library for research- well, Fiona had asked that the Quagmires and Baudelaires do research there, while she and Carmelita went into town to find a newspaper or phonebook. Nobody had thought to argue with her, but it wasn’t as if they were all very happy with each other. Duncan was in the corner of the van with his headphones on, sitting beside Klaus, who was mostly just holding Sunny and staring at the wall, while the toddler glared at everyone who glanced her way. Isadora was curled up in another corner, flipping through her notebook but not writing anything, and Fiona hadn’t looked away from the road for a long while.

“Well,” Carmelita finally said, shutting her own journal, “If nobody’s going to talk, I’ll just talk for everyone, then.”  

“Shut up.” Isadora said.

“Oh! Thank God, I thought everyone had gone mute.”

“We’re not in the mood for this.” Klaus said blankly.

“I get it, you all had some blow-up last night.” Carmelita said.

Duncan lowered his headphones slightly, saying, “It was a bit more than a blow-up, Carmelita.”

“Okay, fine, but we’ve all fought before, so can we just skip to the part where we’re all done and happy and we can get shit done without being all depressing?”

“That’s not how any of this works.” Klaus said, shooting her a glare.

“I mean, that’s how you guys work. You bitch to each other, you make up after an hour’s gone by, we move the fuck on.”

“Carmelita, now is _really_ not the time.” Fiona called.

“I don’t like sitting through this awkward shit.” Carmelita shrugged.

“You can deal.” Isadora said.

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you!”

“Everybody stop cussing each other out!” Fiona called. “We made it to the Library, so we’ve got to at least pretend to be chill for long enough to get inside, alright?”

They all shut up, glaring in opposite directions, as Fiona pulled into a parking spot. She got out the van, but it took her a minute to open the doors, and the kids all pretended they weren’t a little unnerved by that; Fiona was usually very prompt.

When she did swing them open, she looked a bit concerned. “Um,” she said quickly, “What’s with the pumpkins?”

The kids jumped out of the van, glancing around, and very quickly, Carmelita said, “Holy shit, completely forgot Halloween was a thing.”

The Library of this town was, indeed, decorated in orange and black streamers, with jack-o-lanterns littering the windows.

“Halloween.” Fiona repeated quietly.

“You know what that is, right?” Carmelita asked. “The holiday?”

“I know… _basic_ holidays.” Fiona muttered. “Read up on them. Um… Purim, New Year’s, Groundhog Day, Yom Kippur, Chanukah… Valentine’s is for horny people, right?”

“Correct.” Carmelita said. “Halloween is when you dress up however you want, knock on people’s doors, and demand candy.”

“Oh!” Fiona’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s what’s going on. I just kinda assumed I ended up in weird neighborhoods in Autumn.”

“Oh my God.” Duncan muttered.

“So, wait? They just give you free food? Is it safe?” Fiona asked, as they started to head towards the library.

“Uh, hell yeah.” Carmelita said. “It’s _free candy._ ”

“Candy? So it’s not healthy?”

“Better fucking not be.” Carmelita said. “Why would you make the biggest costume in the world if you weren’t going to get rewarded with sugar?”

“We can’t make any costumes this year,” Duncan said sharply, “Seeing as we’re on the run.”

“We could put something together.” Carmelita said, a bit hopefully. “I could swipe a costume while we’re out- Fiona, can we get a few costumes while we’re out?”

“I don’t think so. Can you fit it in your bag?”

Carmelita deflated slightly. “Not really.”

“Sorry, Carm. Maybe next year.”

Carmelita paused as they entered the building, and then said, “Maybe I could just steal some of Isadora’s clothes. Dress like a dork.”

Isadora flipped her off, before saying, “I can look through Herpetology books for this guy.”

Duncan didn’t glance her way, but suggested, “Or we could ask a Librarian, say it’s for a school project.”

“Or you could just let Sunny loose and hope she finds something.” Fiona said.

Klaus held his sister a bit tighter, even as Sunny nodded a bit. “She doesn’t have to do anything. We don’t want to overwhelm her.”

“Klaus, that’s what she _does_.”

“She doesn’t have to do _shit_. She’s a _baby_.”

“Hey!” Sunny yelled. _“Excuse me, I’m a toddler!”_

“Klaus,” Fiona said, “Unless any of us awaken a form of extrasensory perception as advanced as hers, she’s our best bet of finding anything.”

Klaus narrowed his eyes, wondering if Fiona would like to know exactly what Sunny had sensed about the direction they were heading.

“Let’s not make a scene.” Duncan said quickly. “Look, we’ll just get some reading done, not the end of the world. Fiona, weren’t you going to fuck off anyway?”

“Excuse me?”

Duncan shot her a glare, and Fiona sighed. “Fine. Guess we’re all gonna be like that today. Yes, Carmelita, we should go, so long as you four think you can get along for an hour or two.”

They all glanced at each other, and then Isadora turned towards Fiona and said, “Maybe I should go with you.”

“Maybe you should.” Duncan said bitterly, still not looking at her.

Fiona shared an awkward look with Carmelita, and then she said, “Um, maybe-”

“Why wouldn’t she be able to go with you?” Klaus asked, shooting Fiona a glare.

Fiona cautiously watched him, waiting to see if he’d say more, before shrugging and saying, “Alright, Isadora, you’re with us. Sunny, you want to come, too? Make it a girls’ night?”

Sunny shook her head and leaned onto Klaus’s shoulder.

“Makes sense. Let’s move out; don’t wander off.”

Isadora didn’t glance their way as they left, and Duncan fixed his gaze on a doorway ahead, and Klaus and Sunny just stared at the floor.

 

Carmelita stole a newspaper quite fast, and Fiona eventually ducked into the post office to find a phonebook. She slipped that out, and now the three girls were sitting in the corner of an alley. Isadora was fiddling with a pencil in her hands as the other two worked, unsure of what to do.

Finally, after a moment, she said quietly, “I, uh, guess that didn’t go very well.”

Fiona and Carmelita shared a look, and then Fiona said, “Gonna be honest, no, it did _not_.”

“I…” Isadora trailed off. “I was going to try to bring it up much… more gently. But… I just- I couldn’t talk into that radio and _pretend_ it was all okay.”

Neither of the other girls were sure how to respond, so they were just quiet for a moment. Then Isadora shut her eyes, dropping her pencil onto the ground and hugging her knees. “And now Duncan hates me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.” Fiona said quickly.

“He’s just pissed.” Carmelita shrugged.

Fiona paused. “Carmelita, can you…”

“Shut up, got it.” Carmelita nodded.

Fiona turned towards Isadora. “Isadora, he doesn’t hate you. He’s just upset.”

“Because I screamed at him that our brother’s dead.” Isadora said sharply.

“Isadora-”

“I…” Isadora’s voice broke slightly. “I just can’t keep acting like everything’s going to be okay, but… fuck, he’s gonna hate me…”

“He’s not going to hate you. Just give him some time.”

“I…” Isadora shut her eyes, and then buried her head in her knees. “I want to go home.”

“Home?” Carmelita apparently forgot the request to keep quiet, curiosity in her voice.

“I don’t think they sold it.” Isadora muttered half-heartedly. “Father said it was an family house. But I haven’t seen it since… it wouldn’t be a good hideout, the Lab would expect us to go there, but… I want to go home. I… I want things to be okay again.”

Fiona and Carmelita stared at her for a moment, both feeling the same confusion. It was just a building, how could it make her feel better?

“I want to go home.” she repeated, much more quietly.

None of them could think of what to say, so Fiona just wrapped her arms around Isadora, and they sat in the alley for a while.

 

Klaus glanced up as Duncan sat down. “You got anything?”

“No.” Duncan sighed. “Librarian didn’t know who I was talking about. Asked about the Anwhistles, too; nothing. You?”

“Been checking the indexes of these books for a Monty Montgomery.” Klaus said, holding up the book he had with him. “Haven’t got anything yet, but you can help if you want.”

Duncan nodded and sat across from him; Klaus had chosen a table in the corner of one of the larger rooms, near an exit door, and Sunny sat beside him, grabbing books, flipping to the back, and then throwing them onto the chair beside her. If Duncan didn’t know Sunny, he would’ve assumed she wasn’t even looking at them.

None of them spoke for a while. Then, after a moment, Klaus said, “I don’t think she meant it.”

Duncan didn’t have to ask him to clarify what he meant. “She did. I know her, she thinks she’s right.”

Klaus glanced away. “She’s not-”

“She thinks she is.” Duncan sighed. “But Quigley can’t be… he’s not gone. We’d know.”

“We’d know.” Klaus agreed. “And Violet went after him, she’d be able to save him.”

“They probably just can’t respond.” Duncan added. “There’re a ton of reasons that could be.”

“Yeah.”

They stared for a moment, and then Duncan said, “We’re not crazy, right?”

“I think we’re all a bit crazy.” Klaus said carefully, instinctively reaching across the table and grabbing Duncan’s hand, as Sunny stood on her chair so she could look at her friend. “But not about this. Our siblings are gonna find us.”

“Or we’ll find them.” Duncan nodded, glancing down at Klaus’s hand on his.

“Ye!” Sunny said, crawling up onto the table and sitting on top of one of the books.

Duncan hesitated, before saying, “Do you think Isadora’s _that_ pissed?”

Klaus thought for a moment. “I think she’s probably more upset than pissed.”

“I just… she shouldn’t just _give up_ on him. He’s out there and…” Duncan tried to slow his breathing, to keep himself from getting worked up. “So much could happen to him on his own.”

“Ihana.” Sunny said. _“He’s not on his own, he’s got Violet.”_

“We don’t _know that_ , Sunny! What if they got separated? What if they split up for some reason? What if they got-”

“Duncan, hey, hey!” Klaus said quickly. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

“I…” Duncan blinked back tears. “She just… she gave _up_ on him, Klaus! And he needs us!”

“I know, I know.” Klaus said. “But we’re gonna find them, okay?” Duncan still looked upset, so he repeated, “Okay?”

Duncan shrugged. “Okay.”

“And… and once we do, you get to say ‘I told you so.’ Every sibling’s dream.”

Duncan laughed slightly. “Think normal siblings’ll say ‘I told you so’ over less stressful situations.”

“Well,” Klaus glanced around to make sure nobody was around, and then he lifted his hand, letting a book fly into it. “We’re not normal, are we?”

Duncan let out another laugh, and then picked up another book to search the index.

 

Isadora hung back, only slightly behind Fiona and Carmelita, as they finally found  the others.

“You got anything?” Fiona asked.

Duncan shook his head, only giving Isadora a single glance, while Sunny tossed a book behind her and Klaus responded, “You get anything you should tell us about?”

Fiona shook her head, and Klaus shared a look with his sister. Duncan glanced up towards her, before saying, “What are we gonna do now?”

“We’ll just move out to another city.” Fiona said. “Check stuff there. We’ll have to sleep in the van again, and once we get to our next location we’ll probably want to get another ride…”

“Where are we going?” Klaus asked again, pointedly glaring at her.

While Fiona didn’t pick up on his look, Carmelita did, and she took in a sharp breath and then said, “You guys are clearly gonna fight again, I’m gonna go dumpster-diving in the back, you all have fun.”

She skipped off before anyone could protest, and after a moment, Fiona said, “We’re just going out of our way a bit, in case anyone’s following us, then we’re going South.”

“How out of our way are we going?”

Duncan looked a bit confused, slowly sliding his book onto the table, and Isadora glanced over at Fiona, hoping to figure out exactly what Klaus was implying. Fiona, meanwhile, realized just as soon as Carmelita disappeared out the back door. Her eyes widened in a flash that effectively communicated _Oh Shit_ , and then she looked at Sunny, who was crossing her arms and glaring. “Sunshine figured it out, didn’t she?”

“Of _fucking_ course she did!” Klaus snapped, glaring at her. “Did you think she _wouldn’t?”_

“Was hoping it wasn’t important enough to matter to her.” Fiona said. “Listen, Klaus-”

“We asked you to go.” Klaus said, his voice shaking slightly, surprising the triplets with how pissed he sounded. “And you said it was too dangerous.”

“Klaus-”

“So why would you bring us _back_ and not _tell us?”_

“Back?” Duncan jumped, catching on. “Back where?”

“She’s taking us to Hawkins.”

Isadora felt her blood run cold, and she could tell very quickly that Duncan had the same reaction. He went silent, eyes wide, as Isadora raised her voice. “We’re going _where?”_

“Shut up!” Fiona said quickly. “This is a Library, people are going to-”

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Isadora said sharply, “You’re taking us _back?”_

Fiona took a deep breath. “Hopefully _not_ , which is why I didn’t want to _say anything_ , but there _might_ be something going on there-”

“And you decided it’d be a great idea to lie to us?”

“I didn’t _lie_ to you-”

Klaus shot to his feet. “You just didn’t tell us we were _going back to Hawkins!_ ”

“We might _not_ be! I didn’t want to get you excited if there was nothing-”

“Fiona!” Klaus yelled. “If we’re going to go back to _Hawkins_ , we need to know!”

“Stop yelling!” Duncan said, as he and Sunny both shot their hands to their ears.

“Fiona, we can’t go back!” Isadora said. “They’ll find us-”

“I _know_ , which is why we’re playing it _safe!”_ Fiona said. “Look, there might be something happening there, and it’s better if we know what it is.”

“Better if _you_ know what it is.” Klaus huffed.

“I would’ve told you once we had all the _facts_.”

“Or would you have just shut up and not told us anything?”

“Klaus-”

“You can’t just _lie_ to us, Fi! We’re all we’ve got right now, we have to be able to trust that you’ll tell us shit and we won’t have to force it out of you!”

“I am _trying_ to keep you safe!”

“Guys, seriously, shut up!” Duncan said.

“Forte!” Sunny shouted. _“People are going to notice if you get any louder!”_

“We’re not _safe_ ,” Klaus shouted, “If you’re keeping us in the dark!”

Isadora stepped back, unsure of what to say and starting to feel prickles of anger and frustration and fear, feelings that didn’t seem to belong to her. She cursed under her breath. _Not now, don’t start feeling everyone’s shit_ now…

“Look, sorry I didn’t want to scare the shit out of you!”

“That’s _not_ an apology!” Klaus yelled. “We never _asked_ you to lie to us! We never even asked you to drag us across the country!”

“Would you rather I left you in the Lab?” Fiona snapped. “Cause I could have! I could have ignored that article and left you in Hawkins, and then you _all_ would’ve died! I am trying to keep you _alive_!”

“Stop it!” Duncan yelled, pressing his hands against his ears. _“Stop it!”_

And before anyone could say anything else, they heard Carmelita scream.

Instantly, they were all on their feet, and Duncan reached over to pick up Sunny. They bolted towards the back door, Fiona pushing it open as fast as she could and throwing her arms out, one blocking the teens behind her, and the other extended, prepared for a fight.

They saw, quite quickly, that Carmelita was alone in the alley behind the library, but she’d pressed herself up against the wall, breathing raggedly and shivering.

“What’s going on?” Fiona asked quickly.

“What happened?” Klaus asked.

“Ebbene?” Sunny asked. _“Are you alright?”_

“What the fuck did you do?” Isadora asked.

“I…” Carmelita’s eyes were wide, and she looked very pale. “I opened the trash and- and there’s something _in there!”_

Fiona relaxed slightly, and Klaus said, “For fuck’s sake, Carmelita, is it another fucking raccoon? Those tend to be in trash cans-”

“No! It was… it was like a…” Carmelita struggled. “It didn’t have a fucking face!”

They all instantly tensed up and, slowly, Isadora walked up to the trash. She glanced towards the group, and then opened the lid.

Inside was… certainly something.  

“Holy shit.”


	12. Carmelita found a Baby Monster

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

_Carmelita found a Baby Monster_

 

“What the hell is it?”

Isadora had managed to pick the thing up, and they ran to another, more deserted alley to inspect it. Klaus had gotten a shoebox out of the trash, and the creature was now crawling around in it, possibly exploring, possibly trying to escape.

The thing was definitely slimy, and Isadora was still wiping her hands on her jacket. It was a little bigger than her hand, and was colored in some kind of yellow and green swirls. The creature was shaped sort-of like a slug, if a slug had two small legs and a long lizard-ish tail. What was probably its face turned up towards them, a small mouth opening to let out a squeal. Sunny, kneeling right next to the box, kept reaching forwards to touch it, and Klaus kept slapping her hand back.

“It looks like some kind of lizard.” Carmelita observed.

“I’d say it seems more like a pollywog.” Klaus said, thinking back to a book he’d read on frogs. “But I can’t figure out what kind.”

“Cute.” Sunny stated.

“It’s not cute, it’s disgusting.” Carmelita scoffed. “I feel like I need another shower.”

“You didn’t even touch it.” Isadora said sharply.

“I’m _looking_ at it,” Carmelita huffed, “And it’s making me _uncomfortable._ ”

“It really doesn’t have a face,” Klaus said, not paying attention to the argument, “But that’s not necessarily bad. Some insects don’t have what we’d call faces, like slugs and worms.”

“I don’t think it’s an insect.” Fiona said.

“If it’s a reptile,” Duncan suggested, “We could take it to the Herpetologist Guy.”

“Hmm, and where is he again?” Fiona shot him a look.

“Not in _Hawkins_ , I bet.” Klaus shot back. They all flinched a bit, and then Sunny reached forwards to touch the creature again, and Klaus pulled her back. “Stop _doing_ that!”

“We could go back to the Library.” Duncan suggested softly. “Check their reptile books.”

“Who would stay with it?” Carmelita asked, turning up her nose and backing up slightly.

“We shouldn’t split up.” Fiona said. “And we shouldn’t leave _anyone_ alone with this thing, we don’t know what it could do.”

“Sunny, stop trying to touch it!” Klaus yelled.  

“Pulmonata!” Sunny huffed. _“It looks cool! I wanna hold it!”_

“Listen to your brother.” Fiona said. “We don’t know what this thing can do.”

Carmelita suddenly got an idea. “ _We_ don’t.” she turned towards Duncan. “But I bet you do.”

“What?” Duncan looked shocked. “Why would _I_ know anything about it?”

“Maybe not yet.” Carmelita said. “But you can read minds. Read this thing.”

Duncan slowly turned towards the creature, which had settled into a dark corner of the shoebox. “I’ve never tried animals before, and you know that I’m not great at shutting it off…”

“I can try, too.” Isadora said quickly, looking at Carmelita so that she didn’t have to look at her brother. “Maybe my empathy will work on it.”

“ _You_ ever try an animal?” Fiona asked.

“No, but if it works, it might give us some information on what this thing wants.” Isadora said. “But I’m going to need everyone to be as unemotional as possible, so I can focus.”

“Emotions are a bit of a hard thing to turn off.” Klaus said.

“Odio.” Sunny said, which meant, _“And we’re all very upset right now.”_

“Well, you’re all just going to have to suck it up and deal.” Isadora said. She paused, then said, “Everyone but Duncan back up. I’m gonna reach out to try and see what this thing is feeling.”

“And I’ll try to read its mind.” Duncan said, staring at the creature, which was looking towards Sunny curiously. “Guess it’ll be educational to find out if I can read animals.”

“You think it’ll translate into English for you?” Carmelita asked, as the rest of them moved against the wall, Klaus picking up Sunny.

“Probably not.” Fiona said.

“If it does,” Duncan said, “I’m gonna read the mind of every dog in the world.”

“Would also be helpful if we ever need to get over a language barrier.” Klaus mentioned.

“That, too.”

Isadora edged closer towards the shoebox, peering down at the creature, watching as it scampered under her shadow. She brushed her hair behind her ear as Duncan leaned forwards, too, and finally he looked over at her. They met eyes, and then Isadora said, quietly, “Try to stay calm.”

“Not gonna be easy, my powers suck.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Isadora just said, “Good luck.”

“You, too.”

Isadora then glanced down at the creature again, watching it curl up, letting out a small cry for some reason. She gripped onto the bottom of her jacket and shut her eyes, letting herself fall into the world of emotions.

She felt Duncan’s first. He was determined, scared, a little pissed, very curious- of course he was, he was always curious about everything. But he also seemed a bit sad, and Isadora really wished she could just push that emotion away. As she focused more, she could feel more flashes of interest, fear and anger from the others, along with some emotion from Sunny she managed to identify as some kind of adoration; she thought the creature was cute. Like some kind of kitten. Then she felt a clench in her stomach. Maybe that was from the thing, maybe it was scared…

Then she felt an explosion of feeling, a burst of all kinds of anger and fury and cold _instinct._

She gasped, almost throwing herself away from the shoebox, landing against the alley wall, a jolt of pain spreading through her back.

“Isadora!” she heard them all yelling, but she was suddenly overcome with a fear, and some kind of pain. She scrambled back, hiding behind the shadow of a dumpster, breathing quickly.

Duncan, meanwhile, also fell back, throwing his hands over his ears. The other kids glanced to each other quickly, silently communicating, and then Klaus ran towards Duncan, dropping Sunny and putting his arms around him, while Fiona ran towards Isadora and Carmelita dropped in front of the box, watching the animal in case it had done something.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” Fiona asked, putting her hands on Isadora’s shoulders as she shook.

Isadora shut her eyes, feeling herself almost _vibrate_. “Can’t be in the sun. It’s too hot.”

“What?”

“It’s too hot. The thing’s… the thing’s scared and hot.” Isadora said, words tumbling out of her mouth before she could process what she was saying. “It’s too hot. It needs to go home. They’re getting called home.”

“Isadora?”

“They’re everywhere, but they’re getting called home to… to… it needs to go _home_ and it’s too _bright_ …”

She felt something tugging at the back of her mind, but she wasn’t sure what; it felt like another fear, someone else’s fear, but she wasn’t sure who it belonged to. Didn’t seem to be the creature…

Almost as suddenly as all the emotions had started, she felt a jolt as she processed what was happening around her. She turned towards her brother, finally feeling her own emotions again; she felt fucking terrified.

“Duncan?”

Duncan was rocking back-and-forth, muttering under his breath and pressing his hands against his ears. Klaus was hugging him, trying to calm him down. Isadora managed to get to her feet, stumbling towards her brother, with Fiona following close behind.

“What’s wrong with him?” Isadora said, tears brimming at the edge of her eyes. She could still _feel_ everything, and everyone was feeling very, very scared, and she was shaking so hard that she forced herself to sit down in fear she might collapse.

“I don’t _know_!” Klaus said, his fear leaking into his voice. “Duncan, it’s okay, it’s us. We’ll get your walkman- Sunny, get the walkman. Everything’s fine, breathe with me.”

“Breathe.” Duncan repeated, sounding distant.

“Yeah.” Klaus nodded. “One, two-”

“Fire.”

They all froze. “What?”

“Breathe. Fire.” Duncan said. “Thirteen. Fourteen. Rainbow. Storm.”

“What? What are you-?” Klaus hugged him tighter as Sunny finally dug the walkman out of Duncan’s bag, falling over herself as she ran to hand it to them.

“Come home.” Duncan said, starting to sob. “Come home. The Gate’s open. Tunnels.”

“Duncan…” Isadora gasped out, suddenly struggling to speak.

“Come home.” Duncan then froze, and said, “It’s not speaking in words.”

“Duncan?” Fiona asked, reaching forwards to touch his hand. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” he said, suddenly stumbling over his words. “I don’t know, I- I just heard those words, but I don’t know where… the thing, it’s not thinking in words, it’s… it’s being ordered home, it’s… _screeching_ \- Breathe. Fire. Thirteen-”

“Screeching?” Fiona asked.

“Fourteen. Rainbow. Storm…”

“What are those words?” Klaus asked.

“I don’t _know_! I just… I hear them! I hear them! They’re…”

“Uh, guys?” they heard Carmelita say, her voice shaking. “The thing’s changed.”

Fiona and Sunny scrambled over to the box, and after a moment, Isadora managed to move herself towards it, starting to feel dizzy, tears streaming down her face.

_Oh, shit._

Carmelita was right; the creature had somehow turned green while they were away from it, and it had moved to the center of the box, letting out a screech as its sides started to… push out. Like something inside of it was trying to burst out from its stomach. Then, with some kind of splattering noise, two more legs grew from its back.

“What the _fuck_?” Carmelita shouted.

“Holy shit.” Fiona said.

“Whoa.” Sunny muttered.

Isadora reached down to hold her own waist, suddenly feeling a burst of pain, too. She tried to take deep breaths, struggled to keep herself from completely melting down. Everything was too much, and that pull in the back of her head was getting bigger. More fear.

“Come home.” They were startled when Duncan’s voice raised to a scream. “ _Come home! The Gate’s open!_ ”

“Duncan-” Isadora began, turning towards him, her heart pounding in her chest.

Suddenly, Duncan froze over completely; he stopped breathing for a moment, stopped blinking, his eyes going wide and terrified, almost turning to a statue in Klaus’s arms.

“Duncan!” Klaus shouted, terrified.

Isadora let out a scream and threw herself forwards, also hugging her brother, holding him as tight as possible, as Fiona and Carmelita jumped to their feet. _No, no, no…_

Duncan then let out a loud shriek, loud enough that everyone jumped. Sunny started screaming, too, throwing her hands over her ears, and Klaus and Isadora gripped him tighter, terror coursing through them.

Then Duncan started weeping uncontrollably, clutching onto his sister and friend, sobbing out, “Go away! Go _away! Go Away! GO AWAY!_ ”

About then, Isadora suddenly felt the same terror. A desperation, a pleading, _begging_. _Just leave me alone! Go away!_

It wasn’t her feeling. But she wasn’t sure it was Duncan’s.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” Fiona asked, running back towards the teens, terror radiating off of her.

Carmelita started to move towards them, too, only to let out a scream as the shoebox toppled and the creature raced down the alley.

“Go after it!” Isadora screamed, still clutching her brother. “See where it goes-”

_“GO AWAY!”_

Fiona and Carmelita hesitantly started down the alley. Sunny froze, glancing towards both groups, wondering where she should go.

That was the last image Isadora saw before, suddenly, her vision went dark.

She let out a gasp, hearing faint shouts from everyone else, but not able to understand them. She felt herself fall back, or… or was that herself? That pull from the back of her head, it was all over her now, it was taking over and… and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Something was inside of her… no, no, not _her_ , but it felt like… almost felt like…  

It didn’t matter who was feeling this emotion, really. What just mattered was that she couldn’t breathe.  

It may have been a few seconds, or it may have been a few hours. All Isadora knew was that for a long time, she saw swirls of darkness, she heard a distant, familiar screeching, and she felt something inside of her, clutching at her, filling her.

_No, no, no, no, no…_

“Isadora! Isadora!”  

Isadora let out a gasp, and suddenly the world was back.

Klaus was in front of her, Fiona beside him, each with one hand on her shoulder, giving off a deep fear.

She struggled to breathe, her throat feeling all closed up, her mind racing.

“Hey, Izzy, hey! You alright?” Carmelita asked, moving into her field of vision.

Isadora’s eyes darted around the alley, seeing that Duncan was leaning against the dumpster, looking numb and blank, Sunny leaning against him but watching Isadora carefully. They all were terrified. So was Isadora.

“Isadora, what happened? You looked like…” Fiona began.

“Duncan.” Isadora managed to say.

Nodding, Klaus and Fiona helped her to her feet, walking her over towards her brother. Sunny moved, and Isadora slumped next to him, breathing raggedly, still feeling hot tears running down her face. She grabbed her brother’s hand, and Duncan glanced towards her, a question in his eyes.

_Do you feel it, too?_

“What happened?” Fiona’s voice cracked. “What happened, did that thing do something to you?”

“It did something to us.” Klaus muttered. “Me and Fiona, we felt some kind of… jolt, right when you passed out-”

“Going home.” Isadora said blankly.

“What?” Klaus asked, glancing between them.

“They’re going home.”

“Where’s ‘Home’?” Fiona asked.

“It’s Hawkins, isn’t it?” Carmelita asked, her voice quiet.

Isadora’s head hurt as she nodded, and then she put her head on her brother’s shoulder. They were both shaking and silently crying, still feeling that swirling darkness inside.

“That’s it. We have to go back.” Fiona said, her breath catching in her throat, and Isadora realized, then, that that idea terrified her more than the rest of them. “Something’s going wrong there. Those things-”

“Demogorgon.” Sunny muttered.

“That can’t have been the monster.” Klaus said.

“Maybe a baby form.” Fiona suggested. “Or some kind of subspecies. But if it’s going back to the Gate-”

“That’s in Hawkins.” Carmelita nodded. “At the Lab. Whoop-dee fucking do.”

“We’re… we’re going back.” Klaus repeated, sounding like he was in shock. “Back to Hawkins.” Isadora could feel a wave of panic coming off of him, a burst of terror. Something wrong was going on back there, and they were going right to it.

Everyone was terrified of that. Isadora couldn’t blame them.

She shut her eyes, and then, still leaning against her brother, she passed out.


	13. Quigley Fucks Up

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

_Quigley fucks up_

 

“We need to find a map.” Quigley said.

They’d been on the road for a long while, ducking from neighborhood to neighborhood, trying to find either the Library itself or someplace that would hold a map of some kind. Some places were nicer than others, and some louder and more crowded, which Quigley did not like at all, and didn’t make Violet too comfortable, either. They’d only stopped once, around noon, to steal some food, and they were both a little nervous they’d been spotted.

Violet bit her lip and let out a groan. “Who knew one town could be this big?”

“Well. It’s a huge city.” Quigley shrugged. “If I remember right, it was about two-hundred and thirty-four miles squared.”

 _“Two-hundred and thirty-four?”_ Violet groaned. “That’s _too many fucking miles_. Okay, where can we find a map?”

“We could try a post office.”

“Have you spotted one yet?”

“No.”

“This is impossible.” Violet muttered, hugging herself and glancing around the street; it was almost deserted, except for a girl sitting on the steps of a house across from them, and a guy who was walking a distance behind them.

“We’ve made it this far.” Quigley muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets as they turned a bend. “I’m sure we can eventually find one library, right?”

“Maybe I could get my ESP to drag us there.” Violet said, hesitantly glancing over her shoulder.

“Think it’ll actually take you?”

“Worth a shot.”

“We can duck into an alley or something, pause for a bit so you can focus.”

“Might not be a great idea.”

Quigley paused, glancing at her. “Why not?”

“That guy’s been following us for a while.” Violet lowered her voice. “Don’t look.”

Quigley stiffened slightly. “Oh. You think it’s on purpose?”

“Don’t want to risk anything. Okay,” Violet said. “We’re going to turn the bend, and you’re going to teleport us back to the abandoned building.”

“You wanna start over?”

“You wanna get mugged?”

“Not especially.”

Violet hesitated, and then said, “Get your knife, in case things get messy before we can get out.”

“That won’t happen.”

“One hand on me, other on your knife.” Violet said sharply. “And once we turn the corner, get us out of here.”

Quigley hesitated, and then grabbed his pocketknife out of his bag, switching it to his left hand, and then linking his right arm with Violet’s. They turned the corner, and Quigley shut his eyes, preparing to transport them away, trying to ignore the fear flaring up in his chest. He gripped onto her arm, trying to focus back on the warehouse.

“Quigley, wait!”

Quigley opened his eyes, glancing over at Violet. She was watching across the street, where a police car was parked. “There are two guys in there.” she said. “They could see us.”

“That could be good. Means we won’t get mugged.”

“We’ve also stolen a lot of shit from a lot of places.”

“Don’t think we’ve been spotted that much.”

Violet still tensed up. “Another bend. We can go around there, vanish.”

“Someone might look out from a window.”

“We can take that chance, come on. Just walk slowly, look unsuspicious-”

“Too late.” Quigley said, noticing one of the officers get out of the car.

Violet froze up a moment, and then said, “What do we do? No, no, I can figure this out-”

“Just stay calm, or he’ll realize something’s wrong.” Quigley said, trying to ignore the growing panic in his chest. “Why would he be after us, anyway?”

“Quigley, we’re runaways from a Government Lab who’ve done nothing but steal shit for the last year. We literally just stole food today.”

“Oh.”

“Also, you stabbed someone yesterday.”

“Thanks for reminding me.” Quigley took a sharp breath. “Okay, just… we’re two friends walking to school. Nothing suspicious here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’ll… that’ll work.” Violet said.

She gripped tighter onto his arm, and they took a few steps as the officer came closer. He stopped just short of them, his face blank, which annoyed Quigley quite a bit; couldn’t he at least give them a _hint_ of what he wanted?

“What are you kids doing out here?” he asked, his voice as emotionless as his face.

“Just heading to school.” Violet said, her voice a pitch higher than normal, gripping tightly onto Quigley’s arm.

The man stared at them. “You’re very late.”

 _Goddamnit._ Quigley had no idea when people normally started school, he’d completely forgotten that it was currently afternoon.

“Had to stop back home. Get some books we forgot.” Violet said quickly.

“We had a free period anyway.” Quigley said, reciting one of the few terms he’d picked up from television shows that featured children in public school, straining to remember any other terms.

“School’s the other way.”

_We are so bad at this._

“What do you want?” Quigley asked, feeling Violet grab his arm so hard he felt it might break.

“Look,” the man said, as Violet used her free hand to push a short strand of hair behind her ear, “You two look like-”

“We have to get to school or we’ll get detention.” Quigley said quickly, suddenly very scared of what they could “look like”- neither _those kids who steal shit and stab people_ or _runaways from a government institution_ would mean anything good. Violet shut her eyes, and slowly slackened her grip on his arm. Quigley realized what she was doing, then, and said, “So, bye!”

Violet cocked her head, and the police car behind them suddenly flipped onto its side. The officer turned, startled, and Quigley grabbed tighter onto Violet’s hand and dragged her down the street.

They ran as fast as they could, Quigley leading the way, trying to find the streets that looked like they led somewhere better, more populated. They could lose any pursuers in the crowd.

“What do you think he wanted?” Quigley asked as they ran.

“Someone from the Lab could've seen us and tipped off the cops, told them to bring us in.” Violet said, her voice shaky. “It could’ve been from the robberies, too, but…”

“Violet, if we get caught by _anyone_ -”

“I know! Can you get us out?”

Quigley paused, “I-I can try, but-” He figured if they could just get into a crowd, they could get away from the police officers, and then they wouldn’t have to start their search over.  

Thank goodness, when they turned another corner, they spotted a road looked very busy. Quigley and Violet rushed down the sidewalk, running past several towering buildings, trying to find some kind of crowd, or at least someplace to hide.

“Is anyone following us?” Quigley asked, trying to ignore all the loud noises surrounding them.

“I don’t see anyone, but that’s not a guarantee.” Violet said, still sounding terrified. “Quigley, where are we going?”

“Anywhere crowded- there!”

They finally reached an area where multiple people were moving down the sidewalk, close enough that sometimes they had to push each other to get by. Quigley ran into the jumble of people, trying to ignore all the noise surrounding them, and the glares from the people they ran past, and the cars rushing close beside them…

“Quigley!” Violet called out a warning, and he suddenly realized he was about to run into somebody.

He skidded to a stop, sliding a bit to the side to avoid the man, who also didn’t seem to be paying much attention to them.

Unfortunately, as he moved, he lost his grip on Violet’s hand, and found himself toppling to the ground.

The second he hit the concrete, he felt a familiar, cold jolt.

_No, no, no…_

Quigley shot to his feet, eyes still shut, reaching back to grab onto the building he’d fallen beside, and feeling a cold slimy substance.

_No, no, please, not now, not again…_

Quigley started shaking as he opened his eyes to see the dark, decaying Upside Down.

_No, no, stop it, no…_

“Violet!” he yelled. “Violet, I-”

He heard a familiar screech, and he froze for a moment, panic paralyzing him.

And then he turned, and saw something burst around the corner of the road.

He started running, processing what was chasing him as he did. It had looked like a cloud of black dust or smoke, the same thing that made up the Shadow. It was going to catch him, it was going to…

To…

Quigley ducked into an alley, staggering back towards the wall, half-destroyed and covered in roots and mold. He could probably climb it if need be, but he might not have the time.

But he’d just run. He’d run and… and what would happen if he ran too far, and Violet couldn’t find him?

“Violet!” he called out again, unable to stop himself from shaking, clutching himself, trying to calm himself down.

_Go back, go back, go back…_

He heard what sounded like a roar, and he slowly looked up towards the sky.

Something was rising, rising under the dark blue clouds that blocked out the sky.

It was watching him.

The Shadow slowly moved forwards, and Quigley stumbled back, scanning it for a moment; it had a lot more legs than he’d expected, each one a swirling and spinning cloud of darkness. What must’ve been the head focused on him, and one of the legs reached out, moving closer.

“Stop it.” Quigley said, stumbling back, feeling a clench in his chest. “ _Stop_ it!”

It didn’t listen, instead moving closer. Quigley stopped in the middle of the alley, throwing his hands over his ears and starting to scream, tears springing to his eyes.

“Go away!” he shouted.

It crept closer, legs almost floating above the ground as it got bigger and bigger.

“Go _away! Go Away!_ ” Quigley screamed, too terrified to move. “ _GO AWAY!_ ”

A leg reached towards him, and he could see it whirling, see all the dust-like particles, darker than even the world surrounding him. Quigley dropped his hands, holding them in front of him, as if that might do something.

_“GO AWAY!”_

And then the Shadow reached him, and Quigley couldn’t breathe.

He suddenly felt surrounded in the dark material that made up the creature; it was filling him, entering through his mouth, his nose, his ears. His throat was clogged up, and he felt like he was choking in the dust. He struggled to breathe, unable to even do that, and then he couldn’t blink, he couldn’t hear, he could barely even think, barely figure out what was happening to him.

He couldn’t _breathe._

Quigley shut his eyes, and he felt as if something dark was now taking him over.

 

“Quigley!”

Violet tore down the street, running after her friend. She’d lost sight of him in the crowd, and she knew she was drawing too much attention to herself as she tore down the road, pushing people aside and screaming, but it didn’t matter. He’d fallen, and he hadn’t heard her or felt her as another episode took him over, and then he’d bolted again and she had to find him, she _had_ to find him, she couldn’t leave him alone. She had to protect him, she had to be _there_ for him, she _couldn’t lose him._

“Quigley!”

Suddenly, a jolt spread through her, and she let out a gasp, stumbling back and landing against the wall of a building, barely able to keep herself standing. She doubled over, gripping her stomach, her breath knocked out of her for a moment. She let out a cry, tears springing to her eyes, but as soon as she was able to move, she shut her eyes, grabbing onto her sleeves and focusing as hard as she could.

In a minute, she opened her eyes, seeing an image of Klaus.

“Please!” she cried, her voice breaking. “Please, take me to him!”

“Something bad happened.” Her ESP-Klaus said, staring blankly at the wall. “Something-”

“I don’t _care!_ ” Violet shouted. “Just take me to him! Take me to him before something worse happens, _please_!”

The image of Klaus stared, and then tore down the street. Violet followed, her feet feeling like lead, trying to push whatever pain she’d just experienced into the back of her head. She was pushing through people again, ignoring their glares, ignoring the fact she was making herself noticeable, recognizable. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, she just had to find her friend.

Klaus paused just outside of an alley, and Violet slid to a stop behind him. She turned to look inside, and as Klaus disappeared, she froze over, horror filling her.

Quigley was standing in the middle of the alley, facing upwards, his eyes shut. He was _too_ still; he didn’t even look like he was breathing.

“No!” Violet raced forwards, grabbing onto his shoulders before she could think. “Quigley! Quigley, what’s going on? What’s happening? Quigley? Quigley!”

He didn’t respond, so she just shook him harder, starting to cry herself. “Quigley, wake up! Wake up, please!” She was panicking, screaming. “Wake up! It’s Violet, it’s me, I’m right here! I’m here for you, _please_! Please, come back! Come _back_! Wake _up!_ ”

Suddenly, Quigley started, his eyes shooting open, gasping for air.

Violet let out another cry and then hugged him, clutching him tight. He didn’t even move; he just shook and struggled to breathe.

After a moment, Violet pulled back. “I’m _sorry_! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He stared at her with wide eyes, and then she carefully grabbed his hand, leading him over towards the wall. He stumbled after her, and then sat down, slumping against the wall, still shaking and hugging himself. Violet sat across from him, trying to stop crying, trying not to freak him out.

“Quigley, what happened? Are you okay? What…?”

Quigley looked up at her for a long time, not speaking. Then, quietly, he said, “Violet.”

“Yes. I’m here. I’m right here.” Violet said, holding out her hand.

Quigley didn’t take it. Instead, he just stared at her, and then said, “It got me.”

And then he started sobbing, and Violet felt like she couldn’t breathe.


	14. The Road Trip Home is Not Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, quick warning before we begin: We've had quite a few breakdowns in this fic so far, but this chapter features one that is... especially rough.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

_The Road Trip Home is Not Fun_

 

Klaus sat in the back of the car, holding Sunny as tight as he could.

They had been silent for the last few hours; Fiona and Klaus had to carry Duncan and Isadora to the car, as they’d both gone completely unconscious; the triplets had been settled on the blankets, and every now and again Klaus, Sunny or Carmelita would move over to check on them, to make sure they were still breathing or to try and see if they’d wake up soon. Carmelita suggested kicking them a little, but Klaus and Sunny just glared at her and Fiona called out a nervous “No!” from the front seat, so she’d shrugged and sat in the corner, occasionally glancing at the sleeping siblings.

Fiona eventually pulled into an empty parking lot, stopping the car in the far corner before moving into the back of the van. Sunny and Carmelita glanced over at her as she entered, but Klaus just kept staring at the wall.

“Why’d we stop?” Carmelita asked.

Fiona gave a look to Klaus, before moving to sit by the triplets, saying, “It’s almost 7:10.”

“Oh.” Klaus said blankly. He’d completely forgotten.

“Kaxro.” Sunny shrugged, crawling off of his lap and heading towards Duncan’s bag. _“I’ll get it.”_

Klaus watched her go, feeling a flash of panic that he handled by gripping onto the edge of his jacket and curling up slightly. Fiona and Carmelita seemed to notice, and they shared a glance, but neither of them said anything.

Sunny brought back the radio, and Klaus glanced towards the triplets. “Should we try to wake them up again? They won’t want to miss it.”

“We should let them rest.” Fiona suggested, and Klaus was startled to hear her voice was shaking slightly. “They definitely went through a lot of shit today.”

“Philavem.” Sunny said, toddling back to her brother and holding out the walkie-talkie. _“Let’s get started.”_

Klaus hesitated, fiddling with the radio for a moment, a dark feeling in his stomach. He glanced at the triplets again, and then held up the walkie-talkie. “It’s Day Three-Hundred and Fifty-One.”

He fell silent, and the others glanced at each other, waiting for him to start again. “Kla?” Sunny finally asked, turning to stare at his blank face.

Klaus took a deep breath, and then said, “I’m calling to both Violet a-and Quigley today, because Duncan and Isadora are hurt. They got hurt, Vi. The Monster came back and they tried to use their powers on it, and now they’re passed out on the van floor.”

“Klaus-” Carmelita began, as Fiona stiffened.

“We’re going back.” Klaus said, ignoring them completely. “We have to go _back._ And God only knows what we’re going to find there.”

“Kla…”

“We’re in trouble.” Klaus said, starting to rock slightly. “We’re in trouble a-and we _need_ you. We _need you,_ Vi. But you’re not here. You’re _not here!_ When are you going to find us?”

“Klaus.” Fiona slowly edged closer to him, looking worried.

“When are you _coming back?_ ” Klaus started screaming. “When are you going to find us? We _need you,_ and you _left us!”_

“ _Klaus!_ ” Fiona jumped. “Klaus, that’s-”

“Sunny _needs you!_ ” Klaus screamed. “She’s growing up without you! _I_ need you! I need you and you’re not here!” Sunny started crying, but Klaus didn’t notice, still shouting into the radio. “Why can’t you find us? Why aren’t you _here?_ Why won’t you _talk to us?_ ”

“Klaus!” Fiona yelled.

_“Why did you leave us?”_

The radio flew out of his hands, slamming into the van wall.

“Klaus!” Fiona shouted again.

“The _fuck_?” Carmelita added.

Klaus just threw his hands over his ears and let out a frustrated scream, and his bag flew open, its contents throwing themselves into the air and then crashing onto the floor.

“Klaus, stop it!” Fiona yelled.

Sunny kept crying, starting to scream, too. Klaus jumped, turning towards her, finally noticing his sister, obviously shocked to realize he’d upset her. Then he started sobbing, pushing himself into the back corner of the van and burying his head in his knees.

Fiona ran towards him, throwing her arms around him and holding him close as he sobbed, even as he struggled against her, trying to pull away, attempting to hit her. “Let go of me!” he wailed. “Let go!”

“It’s okay.” Fiona said over his cries. “It’s going to be okay. Breathe, Klaus, breathe.”

She was a bit surprised, then, when Carmelita raced over to Sunny, picking up the crying toddler and carrying her to another corner of the van, holding her more gently than Fiona would’ve expected of her. Fiona only watched for a moment, though, before turning back to Klaus, who was still trying to break away from her.

“Breathe, Klaus.” Fiona said, struggling to remember what Duncan and Isadora would say whenever someone was panicking. “Breathe in. One, two, three-”

“I don’t _want to_!” Klaus screamed. “Stop it! Leave me alone!”

“One, two, three, four-”

“Piss off! _Piss off!”_

“Klaus, please, it’s okay.” Fiona felt completely out of her comfort zone; none of the kids had ever panicked this bad before, not since the first day, when Violet disappeared and Klaus broke down, but Isadora had just knocked him out then. Isadora couldn’t help now, so Fiona would have to figure something out on her own.

“Klaus, please, just breathe. Just calm down a second, we’ll-”

“Get _away from me!”_ Klaus suddenly shut his eyes, and Fiona felt an invisible force push her away, and she felt a burst of pain in her back as she slammed into the car wall. The van shook slightly, and Klaus froze for an instant. He glanced towards Carmelita, who was clutching Sunny tighter, still whispering to her, trying to calm her down, then to the sobbing Sunny, and then to Fiona, who had turned back towards him, trying to regulate her breathing enough to calm down, trying to ignore the pain.

There was a quiet, “Wh-what’s going on?”

They whipped around to see that Duncan was sitting up, though shaking slightly. He glanced towards Isadora, eyes widening in panic but softening once he caught sight of her slow breathing. He looked back to the others again, confusion spreading across his face. “What happened?”

Fiona opened her mouth, trying to think of a response.

She didn’t get the chance, though, because Klaus bolted, rushing past them and throwing open the van doors, taking off into the parking lot.

Fiona rushed after him immediately, ignoring the startled cries of the other teens. Thankfully she was much faster than Klaus, so she caught up to him quite quickly, grabbing his arm and yanking him back before he could get too far away. “Get back here!” she yelled. “What the hell are you-”

“Let go! Get off me! I’ll throw you again!” Klaus warned, trying to break her grip. “Fuck off!”

“Klaus Baudelaire!” Fiona tried to keep herself from shouting too loudly, assuming that would not help matters. “Please! Let us help!”

“No! No, I don’t _want_ your help!” Klaus screamed, tears streaming down his face. “I don’t want your help!”

“Klaus, you can’t just leave!”

“I just… I need to _go_.”

“Klaus, please. Just calm down a moment.”

Klaus was shaking and sobbing, still fighting to break away from her. “I’ll throw you again!” he warned. “I’ll do it! Let go! Let _go_!”

“Klaus?” Fiona jumped as she heard Duncan call from behind them; he’d climbed out of the car, stumbling towards them, still looking exhausted. “What’s going- what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Get away from me!” Klaus still yelled, but he was struggling a bit less, starting to look more tired than pissed.

“Klaus!”

“I want Violet back! It’s not _fair_! They- they took her away and now she’s gone…”

“Klaus-”  

_“I wish they’d taken me instead!”_

Fiona fell silent, suddenly feeling shock rippling through her.

Klaus kept shaking, glaring down at the ground. “I… I can’t do this. I can’t do this, Violet would’ve been able to- I’m so _fucking useless_ , I can’t… I…”

Fiona glanced over her shoulder, meeting eyes with Duncan, who looked about as horrified as she felt. Slowly, she turned back to her friend, whispering, “Klaus, they would’ve killed you.”

Klaus bit his lip and kept his eyes on the ground. “I can’t do this, Fi. I… I’m useless, I-”

“Don’t you dare.” Fiona said, moving closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re not useless, okay? You… Klaus, we need you.”

“No, you _don’t._ ”

“Sunny needs you, Klaus. She needs her brother. We need our friend.” She let go of his arm and shoulder and grabbed his hands, hoping that was a comforting gesture. “You’re our friend, Klaus, we-”

“I can’t do this. Any of this.” Klaus continued to cry. “I’m sorry, I…”

Fiona glanced over her shoulder as Duncan moved forwards. He stood next to them, and then quietly said, “Klaus, how long have you felt like this?”

“I’m sorry.” Klaus said, his voice shaking as he kept crying, refusing to meet their eyes. “I’m sorry, I- you just woke up, I shouldn’t- I-”

Fiona stepped aside slightly, and Duncan took one of Klaus’s hands. “Hey, listen. None of us are okay. We’re all losing it. I mean, we all blew up at each other today, and last night, and I… I’m pretty sure most of us have been close to…” He shut his eyes. “Close to breaking down for a while. We’re all _messes_.”

“I can’t- I can’t do _anything_ -”

“You don’t have to.” Duncan said, his voice breaking slightly. “You don’t have to, Klaus. We don’t care what you do or don’t do. We love you, okay? We… we’re gonna be here, alright? No matter what happens, we’re going to help each other.”

“I… I just…” Klaus was clearly having trouble speaking at the moment. “I thought… I thought we could go back, but as soon as we left I just… I can’t do this, those people at the Lab, they took Violet, they _hurt her_ , they would’ve hurt all of you…”

“We know.” Fiona said quietly.

“And… and the Monster-”

“We know.” Duncan whispered.

“If…” Klaus took a deep breath. “If Violet was here instead of me-”

“Don’t.” Duncan shook his head. “Don’t think like that. We have you, and we’re so fucking lucky for that.”

“I…” Klaus shut his eyes. “I just… I can’t do this alone.”

“You’re not alone.” Fiona assured him, and she pulled him and Duncan into a tight hug. Klaus kept shaking and crying, but he eventually hugged them back.

“I’m sorry…” Klaus muttered.

“Don’t be.” Fiona said. “Don’t be, none of this is your fault.”

“I… I can’t…”

“One.” Duncan said quietly. “Two. Three. Four.”

Klaus breathed in.

“One, two, three, four.”

Breathe out.

“One, two…”

 

Carmelita held the screaming toddler, glancing out the van door; she couldn’t see the others, but she’d heard some unintelligible screaming that had finally stopped. Unfortunately, Sunny’s cries had not.

“Hey, hey, calm down.” Carmelita said, wondering if she should risk focusing very hard and using her persuasion on Sunny. Sure, last time she’d tried that on an experiment, she’d passed the hell out, but she just really wanted this kid to _shut up._ “It’s okay. Nothing bad’s happening.”

“Kla!” Sunny screamed. _“Kla!”_

“Goddamnit,” Carmelita muttered under her breath. She didn’t know if Sunny simply meant that her brother had scared her, or if she was asking to be held by him instead. Well, Klaus was outside having a breakdown right now, so he wouldn’t be much help. And Fiona and Duncan were out there with him, and Isadora was still knocked the fuck out, so now she was in charge of the toddler throwing a tantrum in her arms.

“Okay, okay, what does Klaus do when you cry?” Carmelita wasn’t sure; Sunny rarely cried, and when she did Klaus would take her somewhere quiet.

_“Kla!”_

“Okay, not gonna be much help, I see.” Carmelita muttered. “Listen, baby, I have no idea how to chill you out. Do you want a toy? A distraction?”

_“Vi!”_

Oh, shit.

“Cannot get you that.” Carmelita whispered apologetically. “Do you… I can sing something. I like singing. What songs you like?”

“No!”

“Shut up, I’m singing you something. Uh… shit, I mostly just know angsty loud stuff.”

Sunny didn’t respond, instead continuing to sob. Carmelita scanned her memory for anything that could be a lullaby; she hadn’t gotten much music in the Lab, she couldn’t remember anything before that, and once she was released into the world, she was considered too old for stuff like nursery songs.

Wait, wait, she did remember something that might work. She and some friends from school had gone to see a musical film the Summer before Duncan and Isadora had shown up; she’d picked the movie because the kid on the poster looked a bit like her, though her hair was a bit shorter. She hadn’t liked it much- it was way too long and a bit dull and the main little girl desperately wishing for her parents to come rescue her from a hellhole with an abusive guardian had hit her in a way that meant she couldn’t explain to her friends why she had to duck into the hall to sob halfway through the movie, missing an entire musical number. But she did remember the one song pretty well.

 _“The sun’ll come out tomorrow,”_ she sang softly, rocking the toddler, glancing at the door to see if the others would come back soon. _“Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.”_

Sunny quieted a moment, listening a little. Okay, okay, that was good, she was shutting up a bit.

 _“Just thinkin’ about tomorrow clears away the cobwebs and the sorrow, til there’s none.”_ she glanced towards Isadora; still asleep.

 _“When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely,”_ she continued, smiling as Sunny actually started to calm, _“I just stick out my chin and grin and say, oh…”_

She shut her eyes as she started to rock back-and-forth. _“The sun’ll come out tomorrow, so you gotta hang on til tomorrow, come what may…”_

Sunny pulled back a little to look up at Carmelita, tears still in her eyes, a little surprised at how calming she sounded. _“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow. You’re only a day away.”_

Carmelita jumped, then, when she heard a very quiet, “I think it’s ‘always.’”

She and Sunny turned, to see that Klaus was climbing into the van, not meeting their eyes and holding hands with Fiona, who climbed in after him. Duncan came in behind them, smiling a bit at Klaus’s comment and immediately going to sit by his sister.

“Excuse me?” Carmelita asked, hoping they didn’t notice her face going a bit red.

“I think it was ‘always.’” Klaus repeated, sitting beside her. _“You’re always a day away.”_

“No, in the movie, it was ‘only.’” Carmelita insisted.

“Violet and I had the record for the musical, and it was ‘always.’” Klaus said.

“You had the record for the musical?” Fiona asked, prodding slightly; Carmelita  could tell quickly she was hoping to get Klaus on a distracting tangent.

“Violet really liked it.” Klaus said, fiddling with his jacket. “I wasn’t a huge fan, it was-”

“Different from the comic strip.” Duncan said, at the same time as Klaus. They then glanced at each other, surprised they had the same thought.

“There’s a fucking comic strip?” Carmelita asked.

Before Klaus could answer, Sunny moved, crawling out of Carmelita’s lap and into Klaus’s, putting her arms around him in a hug. Klaus froze for an instant, before hugging her back. “Hey.” he said, his voice still a little shaking. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“Sokay.” Sunny muttered. _“Don’t worry about it.”_ She paused, and then said, “Parlare?” which meant, _“Do you want to talk about it?”_

“Not really. Do you?”

She shook her head, still sniffling slightly.

“Well,” Fiona said quietly, “How about you all get some sleep, and… I’ll start driving again.”

Klaus flinched but nodded, holding Sunny a bit tighter. Carmelita turned to Duncan, asking carefully, “Duncan, what… happened? When you read the thing’s mind?”

Duncan froze up a bit as attention drifted to him, and then he whispered, “I’m not sure. It’s confusing a-and… fuzzy. I just remember it…” he shut his eyes. “It was really… scary. I-Isadora will probably… probably remember more. I don’t… know, I’m sorry.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Fiona said. “We will. Let’s just… get on the road.”

They all nodded, and Fiona got out of the car to start their drive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT NOTE
> 
> Unfortunately, Sunday (1/27/2019) will not have an update: my little sister has a theater performance and it'll last from 2:00-4:00, meaning I won't get home on time. Sorry!


	15. Quigley starts acting Very Abnormal

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

_Quigley starts acting Very Abnormal_

 

“I’m sorry, we’re… gonna have to sleep here tonight.”

Violet hesitantly let go of Quigley, crawling on top of the dumpster. She flipped open the lid. “It’s just been emptied, but it’s not _super_ clean. Better than nothing though.”

“Better than nothing.” Quigley muttered, tugging at his jacket.

When he’d finished crying, he’d entered a shutdown, and Violet hadn’t been able to get more than a few words out of him. The two of them had gone down the streets for a while, but as it got dark, Violet got more and more nervous about being on the streets at night. She didn’t want to ask Quigley to teleport them back to the abandoned building; he always got nervous teleporting after an episode, and this one seemed to have been much, much worse than the others. She’d attempted to summon her ESP a couple times, but there’d been too much noise and stimulation for her to focus properly. So, well, dumpster it was.

She crawled in first, digging her blanket out of the bag and spreading it across the floor. Quigley jumped in once she was done, numbly pulling out his own; they’d slept in dumpsters before, so he knew the setup routine. Violet positioned her bag as a pillow, struggling to adjust her eyes to the darkness, saying, “I’ll probably be fine without a blanket, so you can-”

“No, go ahead.” Quigley said. “I’ll be fine with just the jacket. Actually…” he paused, considering. “Might take that off. It’s too hot.”

Violet gave him a concerned look. “It’s autumn in Illinois, it’s fucking freezing.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Violet paused, and then curled up, hugging her knees. Quigley did the same, and she said quietly, “What… happened?”

Quigley shrugged.

“Quigley, please. I know you want to ignore these, but… but something clearly happened with this episode. Something happened to you.”

“It’s…” Quigley shut his eyes, shuddering slightly. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s _not nothing!”_ Violet moved forwards, holding out her hand; it took a moment for Quigley to notice it in the dim light, but he eventually slid his hand into hers. “Quigley, I… I think we were wrong. Whatever is happening to you, I think it’s… I think it’s real. I think something’s _actually_ happening, I don’t know if- if you’re teleporting into the Upside-Down in your mind or something, or if there’s some kind of… magic bullshit, but I think these visions aren’t flashbacks like we thought. And… and I should’ve noticed sooner, and I’m _sorry_ , but you _have_ to tell me what happened.”

Quigley didn’t speak for very long time, and Violet wondered if she’d have to press him again. She moved a bit closer to him, trying to think of something to say that would convince him to open up a little.

Then, in a voice only just barely above a whisper, Quigley said, “It got me.”

“You… you said that.” Violet said quietly. “What does that mean? The Monster?”  

Quigley shook his head. “The Shadow.”

“The Shadow Monster?” Violet gripped tighter onto his hand. “The one that wants to kill everyone?”

“Not me.” Quigley muttered. “It… it _got_ me, Vi.”

“What does that _mean_?”

“I was… I was running, and it…”

Quigley shook again, and Violet asked, “Can I hug you a bit?”

“Please.” he whispered, and slowly, Violet removed her hand from his and put her arm around him, half-hugging him in the dark, cold space. He leaned onto her shoulder, shutting his eyes and saying, “It… I was running, and I stopped, I didn’t want to- to get too far. And I _saw it._ ”

“What is it?”

“I… I don’t _know_. It’s almost…” Quigley was clearly struggling to communicate exactly what had happened, trying to wrap his own head around it. “More like a feeling, than- than a creature.”

His voice broke a bit, and Violet could tell he was starting to cry again. “Quigley?”

“It… it came for me. And… I tried to- to make it go _away._ But it got me!”

“What does that mean? What did it do to you?”

“I… I felt it… I felt it everywhere, Vi. _Everywhere._ I… I _still_ feel it! I just… I just want this to be _over!_ ”

Violet pulled him into a full hug, letting him cry into her shoulder for a bit, holding him as tight as she could. This was all her fault, she should’ve figured out a better way to navigate the city, she should’ve found him sooner, she shouldn’t have let him run off… and now _this_ was happening to him.

“I’m sorry.” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

“I can’t… Violet, it got me, I don’t…”  

Violet pulled away slightly, making sure Quigley could see her face. “Listen, Quigley.” she said, trying to stay calm, for his sake. “Everything’s going to be alright. Whatever’s happening to you, I’m going to fix it, okay? I will fix it.”

“You _can’t_ , this thing-”

“I’m going to fucking try, okay? I’m going to do whatever it takes, Quigley. Nothing’s going to hurt you again. I promise.”

She pulled him into another hug, and they stayed there, clutching each other, for a long time.

 

_April 1984_

 

“Were you in the room with the stuffed whale?”

Quigley glanced up from his book. It was storming outside, something that seemed to weird Violet out a little, and Quigley couldn’t say he liked it much, either. Thankfully, the Library they’d broken into provided a decent shelter, and it muffled the sound of thunder decently enough to keep them from getting too nervous. They’d had to sleep outside in storms before, and it was never very fun. And hopefully they’d wake up before getting caught by any Librarians tomorrow morning. They were both sitting on a  table at the moment, reading whatever books they could get their hands on, and Violet had just asked her question, very suddenly.

“What?” he asked, slowly placing the book beside him.

Violet didn’t meet his eyes; she rocked slightly, saying, “My room, in the Lab, there was a stuffed whale in the drawer. I was… it had some stuff in it, I was wondering if any of it was yours.”

Quigley froze for an instant, before turning a bit to face her more. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember the whale.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. One day they must not have had any tests for me, or something was making them busy, cause they just kinda forgot to come get me or feed me or anything.” Quigley said. “So I dug out the whale, it was the only thing of interest- you know.” Violet nodded. “There was stuff in there. Some necklaces I couldn’t get untangled, some coins, a pen, and a hairpin. Got really excited about the last bit, thought for a second I could pick the lock, before I remembered it would be a lot harder to get out of the Lab. There’d be… people, a-and a fence, and a forest, and I didn’t know where I was anyway, and…”

He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go. They… they told me, first day, that my parents had died in a car accident, and that they had- they had control over me, that actually I was supposed to-”

Violet held out her hand, a knowing look behind her eyes. “Supposed to be there the whole time.”

“Yeah.” Quigley nodded, taking her hand. “That my number was some kind of brand. And I guess I… I guess I just kind of _knew_ they were the people who tried to kidnap me as a baby, that they were the people Mother and Father were so scared would find us, but I… I just thought, maybe it’s all okay, maybe this won’t last forever, maybe they’ll be nice, maybe… maybe my parents really did die in an accident and not a murder, and these people had good intentions, but… by- by the time I gave up on that, it was too late to…”

She squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. You… it was probably better that you didn’t fight as much. I did nothing but fight, and after a week they were ready to kill me.”

“I think I would’ve preferred that, honestly.” Quigley admitted, holding back tears. “Every second I was in there, I wanted to _die._ I wanted it to be _over._ ”

“I know.” Violet muttered, squeezing his hand again. “I know, it was hell in there.”

Quigley glanced up at her. “But we’re out.” She nodded. “And we’re not going back.” Another nod. “And we’ll be done soon, soon as we track down the Snickets or Ellington.”

“Soon as we find them. They’ll probably help us.” Violet agreed.

Quigley took a breath. “Anyway, I… didn’t… wasn’t able to use any of that stuff, except the pen. They let me have one of the books, when I asked, and I-”

“Is that the one with the code?” Violet asked, looking up sharply.

“You saw it?” Quigley asked. “ _The Haunting_?”

“Yes! You…” Violet hesitated. “You warned me not to drink the water.”

Quigley felt his heart sink, as memories came flooding back. “You got the message?”

“It was… a bit late.” Violet muttered quietly. “But I did get it, yes. And it was better than me going into… _that_ while not knowing what was going on.”

“I didn’t.” Quigley said. “Not until the second time.”

“You had to do it more than once?” She sounded horrified.

Quigley shook slightly. “Three times, before my teleportation worked. It was…” He shut his eyes tightly, shaking a bit as all the fear came rushing back. “If they’d made me do it again, I think I would’ve died.”

“I don’t remember much of it.” Violet whispered. “But I remember the fear. It was… incapacitating.”

“That’s a good word for it.” Quigley said quietly.

They glanced at each other, and then Violet said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up-”

“No, it’s… nice to tell someone. It’s… not like anyone else would get it.”

“I guess not.”

They looked at each other for a while, and then Quigley said, “Do you think our parents knew exactly what they’d do to us? Or do you think they just… guessed?”

“Mother must’ve known.” Violet pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “She was Three. She must’ve gone through all of it, too. She… all those rules, all the overprotectiveness… she just wanted to make sure it didn’t happen to me, and…”

“They just wanted us safe.” Quigley added, his voice breaking a little. “They just wanted us safe and now they’re gone and we’re left with… we’re left with this mess.”

A peal of thunder sounded, and they both jumped. They glanced at each other, and then Violet said, “Let’s not think about it right now.”

“Sounds good.”

They went back to their books, and tried to ignore their feelings for a bit.

 

_November 1984_

 

Violet awoke to the sound of a door slamming.

She had to take a second to wake up enough to process what was going on; she was in the dumpster still, and Quigley was curled up beside her; she’d insisted on sharing the blanket, no matter how much he said he didn’t feel too cold, and she briefly noted that he seemed to have kicked the blanket away in his sleep. She sat up, noticing that daylight seemed to be filtering in through the lid. She thought she heard something outside the dumpster… fuck, fuck, fuck!

Violet shook Quigley with one arm, using the other to grab her bag. Someone was outside, someone could spot them. “Quigley!” she whispered, shaking him harder. “Quigley!”

He opened his eyes, blinking away sleep. “Wh-”

He heard the footsteps, too, and he slowly sat up, grabbing his bag, an oddly blank look on his face. Quigley took his blanket, shoving it into his bag. Violet glanced down at the one they were sitting on; they’d have to leave it, it would take too long to get out, and it was probably filthy anyway. Once Quigley shut his backpack, Violet edged to the side of the dumpster, waiting a moment and then peering out. She sighed and said, “Nobody’s here anymore. Let’s get moving.” She glanced down, then, a bit concerned. “Are you okay?”

Quigley shrugged.

“Okay, well… let’s hurry. We can finally find something that’ll take us to Kit.” Violet said. “Just let me know if you need anything, okay?”

He nodded, and Violet climbed out of the dumpster first, shouldering her bag as Quigley hoisted himself up, about to jump out.

“What the hell?”

Violet jumped, turning to see a man had just turned around the bend of the building, trashbag in hand, and he was now staring at two two teens who were obviously climbing out of the dumpster. Violet froze for an instant, saying only, “Uh…” She glanced around the alley, searching for metal she could throw, as well as a decent escape route.

Quigley jumped out of the dumpster, looking a lot less upset than her. He stared at the man a moment, before saying, “We’re sorry, sir, we’ll just move on.”  

“What are you kids doing in the dumpster?” the man asked, and Violet was slightly relieved to see that he looked more confused than angry.

Quigley glanced at Violet, and she said quickly, “We… we were s-supposed to meet our Aunt, but she wasn’t at the bus station and- and we couldn’t find her, so we had to- we didn’t know where else to go, we’re sorry-” She glanced down, and wondered if forcing herself to cry would improve their story. She could do that, she thought, if she focused a second.

“Hey, hey.” the guy said, and Violet relaxed a bit as he dropped the trashbag, now looking concerned. “It’s alright, it’s just… you kids really should’ve gone to the police,  instead of sleeping in a dumpster.”

Violet stared at her feet, nodding, and she elbowed Quigley to get him to do the same.

“Look, where does your aunt live?”

“We don’t know.” Quigley said. “But she works at a Library?”

He reached into the front pocket of his bag, digging out the newspaper clipping they’d found of Kit at the library. He passed the man the article, and he said, “Oh, I know where that is. I’m afraid I have to open up, so I can’t take you there, but if I could give you directions.”

“Oh, thank God.” Violet said. She figured she should be a bit suspicious, but at least the man wasn’t trying to take them anywhere himself. She could probably slip into her ESP later anyway, just to make sure this guy was telling the truth.

“Do you want me to call her or something?”

“No, no, we’re not sure… not sure she knows we’re coming.” Violet said apologetically. “Our parents sent us, and they’re not always… super prepared.” She forced a smile and waved her hands slightly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.” She nodded quickly. “Just… we just need a map.”

“You kids stay out here, I’ll go get that.”

Violet and Quigley glanced at each other. They weren’t sure they wanted him to go off alone- he could just run off and call the cops, or he could be a spy for the Lab about to call backup.

“Can we wait inside?” Violet asked hesitantly. “Just for a minute.”

“Sure.” the man said. “What’re your names, kids?”

Shit. “Laura.” Violet said, thinking of the first name that popped into her head. “And this is…  Dylan.”

“Alright, then. I’ve… I’ve got some food, if you want that.”

“That’d be nice.” Quigley said, somehow looking way less nervous than Violet.

The man turned, and as they started to follow, Quigley linked his arm with hers, and whispered, “If he tries anything, I’ll get us out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

She gave him a quick look. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah. Just… tired, I guess.” He shrugged.

 

The man did turn out to not be much of a threat, which was a great relief to Violet; a person who genuinely wanted to help them was hard to come by. He gave them directions on a map, as well as some breakfast bars he had stashed under the counter. They left soon after that, not wanting to stick around for long, but they made sure to thank him for the trouble he’d gone to. As they walked outside, though, Quigley looked very uncomfortable.

“Is everything okay?” Violet asked, scanning him slightly; he looked a bit pale, but otherwise not that bad.

“Yes, it’s all okay.”

“Is the map wrong?”

“No, this looks decent.” Quigley said, flipping over the map in his hands. “We’re not too far, maybe an hour’s walk tops, so long as… I’m sorry, can you hold this for a second?”

He handed Violet the map, and then he shrugged off his bag, tossing it against the wall of the building. She watched, astounded, as he took off his coat, stuffing it into his backpack. He glanced over at her. “I only need one layer, right? I’ll just tie the sweater around my waist and wear the shirt, that should be-”

“Quigley, what the hell?” Violet asked, stunned. “It’s freezing!”

“Good.” Quigley said, his voice eerily blank, as he took off his sweater, even rolling up the sleeves of the shirt he’d had on under it.

Violet grabbed his bag from him, pulling the coat out again and holding it out for him. “Quigley, come on, wear the coat. You’re going to freeze-”

“No.” he said, not even looking at her.

“Quigley-”

“He likes it cold.”

Violet’s stomach dropped. “What?”

Quigley looked up at her, his face expressionless. “He likes it cold.”

“What does that-”

Quigley grabbed the coat, stuffing it back in the bag, and then he started walking, and Violet ran after him.


	16. Fiona helps Klaus practice a Little

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

_Fiona helps Klaus practice a Little_

 

Klaus woke up early, and he climbed into the front seat with Fiona as she drove down the road. They were silent for several miles, before he said, “Did it feel this bad?”

“What?”

Klaus bit his lip and glanced out the window. “Going back. Knowing you’re not going to find anything good there.”

Fiona adjusted her glasses, and muttered, “Yeah. But… hey, maybe we’ll find clues about where Violet is. Maybe she’ll find out this shit’s going down and come back, too.”

Klaus shrugged, hugging himself and staring out the window.

Fiona waited a moment, and then said, “We won’t all go into town, not unless absolutely necessary. If any of us go in, it’ll be me and Sunny; I don’t believe many Lab workers frequent town, the people living there hopefully won’t recognize me, and Sunny’s grown up a lot in the last year, if we maybe styled her hair different or shoved on a hat, we could pass her off as a different child. What fake names have we used for her again? I was thinking Kara or Shelby would be good.”

“I don’t want Sunny going anywhere without me.” Klaus said.

“Well, the rest of you will get recognized in town, and Carmelita’s persuasion might not work completely; just telling everyone ‘forget you saw us’ might tire her out, or she might miss someone.”

“I don’t want her out of my _sight._ ” Klaus insisted.

Fiona took a breath. “Okay, well, we’ll have to disguise someone else very well. We’re not sending anyone out alone, especially not in such a high-risk city. In most cases we’ll all want to be together.”

Klaus nodded. Fiona hesitated, then muttered, “How…” she glanced behind her. “How are the others?”

“Duncan fell asleep real quick.” Klaus said. “So did Carm. Isadora still hasn’t woken up, but she seems to be sleeping. I think Sunny was only pretending to sleep for a while. I… still feel a bit bad about last night-”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I shouldn’t have blown up in front of her. And then my powers went haywire again…”

“My abilities sometimes went off at random soon after they activated.” Fiona said sympathetically. “Which, for someone with toxikinesis, is _not_ fun. I think it’s a bit normal. Once you start working with them, you get used to them, and then you just subconsciously forget to shut it off. Sunny and Duncan still have trouble with that, you know, and even Isadora sometimes…”

“But this is a _problem,_ Fi.” Klaus said. “If I get stressed, and something explodes or flies into the air, we’re fucked.”

“You said it happened before, Carmelita fixed it.”

“She might not always be there.” Klaus said. “You all might not always be there.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “If I could lose Violet, I could lose anyone.”

“You didn’t lose Violet.” Fiona insisted. “She-”

“It doesn’t matter where she is.” Klaus said. “What matters is she’s not here, and… and I’ve got to take care of Sunny. And I can’t do that if I’m still _fucking up_ all the time!”

“Klaus, you _have_ been taking care of Sunny, for the last year.” Fiona said, turning a bend in the road. “But you’re not doing it alone, okay? We’re all here for you, and for her. We told you that last night. We’re in this together, for better or worse, okay? And once we find Violet and Quigley, we’ll take care of them, too.”

“Do you… actually think we’re going to find them?” Klaus eyed her carefully. “Or  do you… do you think… do you agree with Isadora?”

Fiona paused. “I think that my opinion doesn’t matter. I don’t know either Violet or Quigley, my only memories of them are from when they were toddlers trying to steal my music box.” Klaus laughed a bit at that, which was a pretty good sign. “The point is, I can’t judge whether or not they might be alright. You know them, and you said you believe she’s out there.”

“I do.”

“Then I’m sure she is.” Klaus fell silent, and Fiona gave him a quick look. “If you want your powers to be more in control, though, you’re going to have to practice.”

Klaus let out a groan. “Fi-”

“It’s just a fact, Klaus.”

“But I hate it!”

“You still need to work at it. You need to find a way to remain in control of yourself.”

“How do you do it?”

“What?”

“Control your powers.” Klaus said. “You get emotional, too, and nobody ever gets accidentally poisoned.”

“Well,” Fiona gripped the wheel a bit tighter, “I had seven years of nonstop practice, so you bet your ass I have some management over my toxins.” They fell into an awkward silence for a moment, and then Fiona said, “I told you that it’s controlled by your emotional state, right?”

“Yeah, that’s why it goes nuts when I do.”

Fiona looked lost in thought for a moment, and then she said, “I might have an idea. Would you and Sunny want to go into Hawkins together with me? We can figure out some way to disguise you.”

“Why?”

“We might be able to get some decent practicing in.” Fiona said. “Something that might be able to help. Carmelita can stay with the triplets, Sunny can find us a hideout…”

“Fine, whatever.” Klaus huffed, turning to glare out the window again.

Fiona waited a moment to see if he’d say more, and then she muttered, “You can turn on the radio if you like.”

“Meh.” Klaus eventually did lean forwards, though, turning on the radio and flipping to a decent station. The two of them sat in silence as the song played on.

_“No one heard a single word you said; they should have seen it in your eyes, what was going around your head…”_

 

When they passed the _Welcome to Hawkins_ sign, Fiona parked on the side of the road and woke up the others. While Isadora still slept on, not stirring as they tried to prod her awake, Duncan sat up and gathered all their things, and Carmelita did her hair and makeup, and Klaus changed Sunny’s outfit. He found the hat they’d stolen for her last winter and managed to fit it over her hair, quietly helping her into a small jacket that hopefully made her look a bit bigger than she was. Then Carmelita forced Klaus into a corner to do some makeup that would “make him look like a semi-different person, hopefully.”

“Our story,” Fiona said, “If we are asked, is that we’re visiting relatives. I’m your adopted sister, our Grandparents live in the next town over, our parents trusted us to run errands without them. Carmelita’s giving you slap bracelets to cover your marks, and under absolutely no circumstances are you to remove them.”

“Nomine.” Sunny called. _“We’re going to need names, in case anyone asks.”_

“First of all,” Fiona said, “You and Klaus should also talk as little as possible; if someone doesn’t recognize your face, they could recognize your voice. Especially you, Sunny, your way of speaking is pretty specific. Second, yes, you’re right. I’ll take… Addison. Sunny, you take Tara. Klaus, you got anything or should I just think up a random name for you?”

Klaus paused for a moment. “Elliot. Should we have a last name?”

“Just use ‘Smith’, it’s the easiest to remember.”

“Should I go, too?” Duncan asked hesitantly.

“No, stay with your sister.” Fiona said. “Besides: you, Isadora and Carmelita were in town much longer than Klaus, you’ll be recognized faster.”

“I think I’ve got his makeup done.” Carmelita said, and Klaus sighed with relief. “But he’s gonna have to live without glasses, those are too obvious.”

“I can’t see shit without them.” Klaus said.

“Gerhard.” Sunny said. _“I could tell you when you’re about to run into things.”_

“Bring your glasses with you just in case, but try to keep them in a pocket.” Fiona said. “Stick close to me, don’t talk to anyone you know, and we’ll get some practicing in on the way back to hideout.”

“We’re going to have to find a hideout first.” Carmelita said.

“That’s Sunny’s job. Think you can do it, Sunshine?” Fiona asked.

Klaus bit his lip and glanced away as Sunny shut her eyes, clenching her fists and focusing. Then she nodded, and said, “Benz,” which meant, _“Start driving. I’ll give directions.”_

“Alright, then.”

Sunny paused, then said, “Wright,” which meant, _“Or I could drive.”_

“No.”

 

Sunny directed them to a house at the edge of town; it was a good ways into the woods surrounding the town, practically isolated. Fiona rang the doorbell, just in case, and then picked the lock, going in with Klaus and Sunny. It seemed to be emptied of all personal items, but it still had some basic furniture, like someone had set up the house to sell and then abandoned it. It was pretty dusty, too, which was good; it meant that nobody had been there in a while.

“You two settle in.” Fiona instructed Duncan and Carmelita, after she’d carried Isadora in, settling her on an old couch. “Clean up a little if you can.”

“Great. Love being on cleaning crew.” Carmelita crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

“Do you think anything bad’s happening to her?” Duncan asked, sitting next to his sister.

Fiona knelt down, brushing Isadora’s hair back to see her face better. “She seems alright. She’s probably just exhausted. Hopefully she’ll be up soon.”

Duncan nodded worriedly, and Fiona dragged Klaus and Sunny back out to the van.

 

Going into town was… not very fun. Fiona mostly insisted that Klaus and Sunny stay in the car while she ran into stores to buy food and other supplies with whatever cash she had left over, though she instructed they be ready to run out and fight with her should anything happen. Klaus did sneak his glasses back out to watch out the window, uncomfortable to see the familiar streets, looking exactly as they did when he left a year ago.

“Kusligt.” Sunny said, which meant, _“It’s eerie.”_

“Yeah.” Klaus agreed, hugging her slightly. “Do you think anyone will recognize us?”

Sunny giggled slightly as she said, “Saila,” which probably meant, _“How could they? They’ve never met Elliot and Tara Smith.”_

“Of course not.” Klaus laughed a little, too. “Wonder if my old classmates would be here. You never met them, did you?”

“Festa.” Sunny reminded him. _“I saw a few at Carmelita’s party. Remember, when your powers awakened?”_

“Oh, yeah. Not fun.”

Sunny leaned up against him as a small comfort as Fiona raced back to the car, jumping in the drivers’ seat. “Don’t want to wait around for long.” she muttered, almost more to herself than the others, as Klaus quickly stowed his glasses back into a pocket. “In case someone from the Lab spots us.”

“You got everything?” Klaus asked, as she tossed her bag into the back of the van.

“Yes. So…” she looked over at him. “Ready to get some practicing in?”

“No.”

“Too bad, kid.” She started the car. “Now, you happen to know where they park the school buses here?”

“What? What does that have to do with-”

“Sunny, can you find it?”

Sunny nodded, grinning a little as she shut her eyes. Then she pointed right.

“Okay, let’s head out.”

 

They did eventually find a busyard, thanks to Sunny’s directions, and Fiona parked the car, before leading them into the middle of the lot, several feet from the multiple parked buses. After Klaus put his glasses back on, him and Sunny inspected the buses as Fiona circled the lot, watching for anybody who might spot them. Once she made sure nobody was around, Fiona took Sunny from Klaus. “Alright,” she said, “We’re going to try something new. Now, with your abilities, you tend to focus on your fear to power them, right?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Klaus nodded.

They’d all figured out their powers were emotional pretty quickly, and Klaus’s powers had only activated during sudden bursts of terror and panic. So whenever he needed to use his powers, he’d started by focusing on his own feelings of fear, which, in their year on the run, had gotten very easy to tap into, to the point where he eventually could move things just by focusing enough, though that still took a bit of concentration; he hadn’t gotten as good as Isadora at just turning his powers on.

“But it’s not just fear for everyone, is it?” Fiona asked. “Duncan turns his on when he feels overwhelmed, which is slightly different. Isadora’s come out when she’s calm enough to focus and channel them. Sunny’s mainly just… what do you use, again?”

Sunny glanced at Klaus, pointing at him and saying, “Praemunio.” _“Wanting to make sure my family stays together and safe.”_

Klaus smiled at her slightly, and Fiona said, “Now, Klaus, I want you to try something else. The feeling that I used to finally channel my powers.”

“What?”

“Anger.” Klaus froze a little, and Fiona continued, “You’ve certainly got a lot of it.”

“I-”

“Consider this an outlet for your anger, so you don’t burst again.” Fiona said, not unkindly.

Klaus shifted uncomfortably. “I- I just…”

“I kept that pain inside for a long time at the Lab.” Fiona said, a faraway look in her eyes. “And then one day I just broke, and the floodgates opened, and I had more control than I ever thought. That pain inside, I… I let it fester.”

“Fester?” Sunny asked.

“‘Fester’ means ‘to rot.’” Klaus defined.

“The pain spread.” Fiona said. “It would’ve destroyed me, but then, once I released it, I could use it. Use the fury and hate they forced on me. And it helped. It might help you.”

“I…” Klaus glanced at Sunny. “I don’t know. I…”

“I want you,” Fiona said, “To pick a bus, and move it towards us.”

Klaus stared at her in disbelief. “Those things are _huge_ , I can barely flip a car.”

“I want you to try. No judgement if it doesn’t work.” Fiona said. “Just try to use your anger instead of your fear. Or use a little of both.”

Klaus took a deep breath, and then turned towards the buses. He picked one towards the end, so he wouldn’t have to worry about it swinging and damaging two other vehicles. He slowly reached out his hand, taking another breath and focusing as hard as he could.

Temporarily, he forgot about what Fiona had asked of him, instinctively slipping into his normal focus, powered by the fear he was feeling at the moment; the fear he was going to fail them all, the fear that they were going to get spotted and recognized, the fear that the Upside Down was going to send more Monsters after them, and the fear that… that Violet might not be able to find them.

The bus rocked a bit, moving back-and-forth. Klaus focused a bit more, and saw that it raised a little from the ground. But that wasn’t good enough, and he started breathing harder, focusing harder, but it only moved an inch before he dropped his arm.

“Kla?” Sunny asked worriedly as he bent over, putting his hands on his knees, shaking slightly.

“I… I can’t.” Klaus said quietly, holding back tears. “I’m sorry-”

Fiona knelt down slightly. “Klaus. Do you remember what happened right after Violet left?”

Well, that wasn’t going to help him keep from crying. “Yeah. I went nuts.”

“You moved everything in the room. If you could do that, you can move a bus.”

“Fi, I-”

“Try to focus on your anger, Klaus. Try again.”

Klaus hesitantly got back up, and Fiona stepped back, still carrying Sunny. Klaus gave his sister a quick look, and then he turned back to the bus. As he focused, Fiona said, “Klaus, find something in your life. Something that _angers_ you.”

Well, that wasn’t hard; a lot of his fearful memories were tainted with a good amount of frustration. Anger at the men who’d tried to kidnap them all, who’d taken Violet and killed their parents. Anger at the adults who wouldn’t listen to him when he insisted his older sister was alive. Anger at Esme, who’d acted as his guardian and then thrown him to the Lab the second she could. Anger at the fucking Lab, for torturing his sister, and Duncan and Isadora’s brother, and Fiona and Carmelita, and God only knew how many other children.

The bus started to move, sliding a bit towards them. Sunny let out a gasp, and Klaus stopped, turning towards her. She waved for him to keep going, and Klaus looked to the bus again, surprised himself.

“Keep going.” Fiona encouraged.

Klaus thought on his anger again, and the bus moved again, and Klaus shut his eyes, and he felt more anger, more _fury._ But not at a specific person or group of people this time. At the awful situation he was in. At the stupid world they were now in all alone. At the fact Sunny had to grow up like this, had to grow up on the run, under so much pressure and paranoia, without a home, without a future, without _parents._

Anger at the fact that _he_ didn’t have his parents, either.

And neither did Violet. 

The bus kept moving, and Klaus forgot about its weight, or its size, or the fact he’d been convinced this was impossible only moments before.

He was _pissed._ He was pissed at himself for fucking so much up, and at the world that seemed out to get them, and at everyone who’d tried to hurt them.

The bus was moving faster, getting a lot closer to them.

He was pissed at the Lab. He was pissed at his parents, for not telling them _shit_ about this, leaving them completely unprepared for the shitstorm that awaited them. He was pissed at…

He’d never admitted it, not even to himself. But he was pissed at Violet.

He shouldn’t be. It wasn’t her fault.

But that’s how he felt. 

_She left us._

Klaus let out a scream, and he dropped to the ground, barely holding himself up enough to stay on his knees. The bus slid to a stop, now several feet closer to them than it had been only moments ago. Klaus breathed slowly, barely able to reach up to wipe away his nosebleed, suddenly feeling tired.

“Kla!” Sunny cried, and Fiona ran forwards, kneeling in front of Klaus, dropping Sunny to the ground so she could see her brother better.

Klaus looked up, but saw that behind her concern, Sunny looked _impressed._ Fiona did, too, and she smiled brightly, reaching forwards to touch Klaus’s hand. “How do you feel?” she asked excitedly.

Klaus considered. He hated to admit it, but while he felt tired, he didn’t feel as exhausted as he’d expected. And… he’d just moved a bus, all on his own. Besides, it was a bit nice to… to admit to himself that he wasn’t okay.

“Good.”

Sunny and Fiona smiled. “Well, now we know what to practice with.” Fiona said.

 

They got back to the house pretty soon afterwards, and Klaus slowly climbed out of the car, helping Sunny to the ground. Sunny raced to the door first, giggling and pushing it open, calling out an announcement that they’d arrived. Fiona and Klaus walked in a bit later, with Klaus helping her carry an extra bag full of food she’d purchased  for them.

“We don’t know how long we’ll be here, but I spotted a fridge that should hopefully still work.” Fiona said. “And if we have food here, we won’t have to go into town as much.”

“How… close are we to the Lab?” Klaus asked hesitantly.

“You’d know more than me. I don’t know this town as well.” Fiona considered as  they walked inside, dropping the bags on the floor and kicking off their shoes. “Maybe we could ask Carmelita, she was here at least two years.”

“Hey, we’re back!” Klaus called, wandering down the hall. “You guys still in the living ro-”

He turned a bend into the room, and everyone looked up at him. Sunny waved from the bottom of the couch, where she was sitting, letting Carmelita put her hair back up for her. On the couch was Duncan, who smiled slightly upon seeing him, but, surprisingly, next to him was Isadora, who had tossed her jacket to the side of the room, and was now leaning on the couch’s arm, looking up at Klaus like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Isadora!” Klaus grinned, running towards his friend. After a moment, Fiona appeared, too, racing over, and the two of them stopped in front of the surprised girl.

“Are you alright?” Fiona asked. “How long have you been awake?”

“I’m… okay.” Isadora shrugged, sounding a bit dazed. “And it’s only been an hour or so.”

“Do you-” Klaus began.

“She remembers less than me.” Duncan said carefully. “About what actually happened when we read the thing’s mind.”

“I just…” Isadora shut her eyes. “I remember fear, and… pain. I don’t know… I don’t want to think about it.”

“Isadora-” Fiona began.

“That’s not all.” Duncan said quickly.

“Duncan, it’s not that big a deal-”

“It _is.”_

“What?” Fiona interrupted. “What is it?”

Isadora shrugged. “It’s nothing. I just… feel a bit warm, that’s all.”

“It’s freezing.” Klaus said.

“Look, it doesn’t matter.” Isadora said. “Nothing is wrong or anything. I just…” her gaze went a bit distant.

“Isadora?”

Isadora hugged herself, shutting her eyes tight. “Do you… feel that?”

“Feel what?”

She started breathing very hard. “Fear.”


	17. Nothing Goes Right for Anyone Today

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

_Nothing Goes Right for Anyone Today_

 

“Our luck just keeps getting better and better.” Quigley said.

“It could be worse.” Violet shrugged.

They’d finally managed to reach the Library, and they’d asked a Librarian where they could find Kit Snicket. She’d gone to find someone who could help them, and they’d been stuck waiting for thirty minutes until she came back and informed them that, sorry, Kit Snicket wasn’t working that day. Thankfully, Violet had pulled out the sob story again, managing to make herself cry slightly, and the Librarian went and found someone who knew Kit better, and got the kids her address. They were waiting for a bus now, having managed to scrape together enough cash after digging out their emergency funds.

“We can at least get here.” Violet said, glancing over the sheet of paper they’d been given, with the address written on it. “Oh shit, it’s an apartment. I bet it’s fancy, we’ll look stupid walking in there, we’re filthy.”

“Won’t matter.” Quigley said. “If Kit will help us, she probably won’t care what we look like.”

“You’re… very calm.” Violet noted, hoping to hide the fear in her voice. She glanced to the side, and then said, “Do you… want to talk about what you said earlier? About-”

“Him?”

“Well, you did freak me out quite a lot.” Violet admitted. “You make it sound like you’re possessed or something.”

Quigley didn’t respond.

“Quig?” Violet stared at him. “ _Are_ you possessed?”

“I… I don’t know.” Quigley shrugged. “I think… I still feel it.”

“The Shadow?”

Quigley hesitantly nodded.

“It’s still inside you?”

Another nod.

Violet glanced over at the other people waiting for a bus; none of them were paying much attention to the two teens, but she still wasn’t sure how careful she should be. She lowered her voice a little, as she said, “And you said he likes it cold?”

“Yes.”

“What’s… what’s ‘it?’”

Quigley considered. “Me. No… everything. He likes everything cold.”

Violet hesitated. “How do you know that?” Quigley shrugged. “Quigley, how do you know?”

“I don’t know, I just… do.”

“Does he talk to you?”

“No, no, it’s like…” Quigley shut his eyes. “I don’t have to think, I just… know things.”

“What kind of things?”

“The cold. The…” Quigley shut his eyes. “It’s hard to explain. It’s like… old memories, but they’re not… they’re not _mine._ Or… not old memories, no, they’re like… memories happening now-”

He suddenly jolted, jumping back on the bench.

“Quigley?” Violet reached out, leaning over to see his face better. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?”

“It’s… they’re growing.” he said, his voice for the first time that day showing emotion, though Violet was very startled to see that emotion was fear. “Spreading. Killing…”

“Quigley, focus on me, okay?” Violet said, holding out her hands, hoping he’d open his eyes and see them and let her hold him for a moment. “Quigley, whatever’s happening, let me help.”

“I don’t…  I don’t know what…” Quigley said shakily. “There’s… it’s almost like tunnels, but they’re all dark, they’re…”

“Tunnels?” Violet gasped. “What tunnels?”

“They…” Quigley opened his tear-filled eyes, only to freeze, looking over Violet’s shoulder.

“Quigley?”

“Vi, we have to go. Now.”

Violet glanced behind her, following his gaze, only to spot two police officers across the street, staring right at them.

She stared for only an instant, and then jumped up, holding out her hand. Quigley took it, and Violet gripped it as hard as she could as she took off down the street.

She heard yells, and footsteps rushing after them, even as she and Quigley tore down the road. They pushed through any crowds of people they encountered, turned every bend they came to, ran as fast as their legs could take them, but even still, even after several minutes of panicked running, they still heard people running behind them.

“Don’t these assholes get tired?” Violet muttered.

“We’re gonna miss the bus.” Quigley said, not sounding as worried as he should.

“That’s the least of our problems right now, buddy.” Violet said back, and they turned another bend. “You know what? Next corner, we’re gonna run across the street. Maybe that’ll throw them off.”

“What about cars?”

“I don’t see any, do you?”

“That’s not a guarantee.”

“We can’t worry about that, hurry it up!”

They burst around the corner and into the street, and immediately Violet wished she’d listened to Quigley.

They ran right in front of a car, which barely managed to stop right before hitting them. Violet let out a startled screech, while Quigley only barely jumped, glaring at the vehicle that had almost run into them.

And because they had such great luck, it was a police car.

Violet froze for an instant, and then yelled, _“Fuck!”_ The teens ran farther across the street, turning around the other bend, and Violet jumped as she heard sirens turn on. She dragged Quigley along, even as he slowed slightly.

“Okay,” she said, her voice getting panicky. “Okay, okay, we can get through this.”

“I can try to take us somewhere.” Quigley offered, still emotionless.

“Quigley, if you’re possessed by something from the Upside Down, you shouldn’t risk-”

“Bend!”

Violet almost ran into the street again; she skidded and then burst around the corner, pushing her and Quigley through another crowd of people; students returning home from school, it looked like. They let out loud shouts and curses, but Violet didn’t have time to care, focusing only on keeping her grip on Quigley.

“Take a right here.” Quigley said suddenly. “I recognize this place, in two rights we’ll there’s a place with a lot of allies and shit, we can run through those.”

Violet nodded and dragged them down the two rights, trying to ignore the fact the sirens were getting louder. “Damn it,” she muttered, as they finally turned the bend. “We’ll run through here, okay? We’ve got to lose them.”

She ran inbetween the first two buildings she came across, dragging Quigley as fast as she could, sliding around a corner once they reached the end of the pathway and dragging him down the road. They raced, and as they ducked into one alley, she noticed a metallic fence at the end. She let go of Quigley, throwing out her arms and watching it split in half, swinging open like a gate. She reached up to wipe her bloody nose, saying, “Alright, Quig, come on, let’s-”  

She turned, surprised to see that Quigley had stopped a few feet back, standing in the middle of the path. He shook his head, stepping back.

“Hurry it up, come on.” Violet waved.

“No.” he said. “No, no, something bad’s…”

“Quig, we have to keep moving, we have to keep running-”

“Violet-”

“Quigley, come _on_!”

Quigley shut his eyes tight, and then took a tentative step towards her, flinching as if it hurt him.

“Quigley?”

He was breathing very slowly, looking incredibly pale. “It doesn’t want me to…”

“Quigley, we _have to!_ Come on!”

“Violet, I…” Quigley started shaking, and he threw his hands over his ears. “I can’t move, I can’t move, _Violet, it wants me to go home…”_

Violet heard the sirens again, sounding a lot closer than she would like. Her eyes darted around, trying to look for a hiding spot; Quigley obviously wasn’t able to move far, but she wasn’t sure they’d be able to… there! She spotted a door on the side of the wall, and she managed to drag Quigley towards it. She flicked her hand, unlocking it, and she pushed the door open and peered inside. It led to a small storage room, from some store or another. They could hide there, definitely. She pushed Quigley inside, locking the door behind them and stepping back, listening intently. She didn’t hear the sirens pass them by, but she wasn’t sure they’d stopped, either; the door was muffling everything. She instinctively reached for the ribbon tied around her wrist, thinking it might help her focus, only to remember before she started to untie that, oh yeah, her hair was too short for that now. She turned towards Quigley, who’d raced to the corner of the room and sunk down onto the floor, blank again.  

“Quigley, what’s going on?” she asked.

“I don’t _know.”_ he said. “Every time I shut my eyes, I see the- the tunnels, but they’re… I see the Upside Down, Violet, and I can’t make it stop. I can’t make it _stop.”_

Violet glanced between him and the door. The last two times they’d been chased, he’d had a much worse panic attacks than this, which resulted in him getting possessed. What could happen to him if he kept running? They could hide here for a while, the police would see that giant hole in the fence, they would probably go down that way… well, until they realized the children weren’t there and doubled back. But would they have time to run before then? Would Quigley even be able to run?

He had gone back to shaking, curling up and whispering to himself. Violet turned to stare at him, her heart sinking into her chest. He wouldn’t be able to run like this, not in this condition. She couldn’t lose him again… but she might have to leave for a bit.

_No, no, I can’t lose anyone else…_

_But something worse could happen to him while we run._

Violet ran to him, kneeling in front of him and holding out her hands. Quigley hesitantly took them, his hands feeling cold, still shaking under her grip. “You can’t run.” she stated, tears in her eyes.

“I… I…”

Violet gripped his hands tighter. “Stay here. I’ll distract them.”

His eyes widened in complete terror. “What?”

“I’ll get them to follow me.” Violet said. “Hide here. I’ll come back for you, but if they try to get in here, teleport anywhere else and meet me at Kit’s. Okay? I will find you, but you can’t run like this.”

“You said-“

“I _know_ what I said, but if the police show up, if you get caught- just disappear, okay? Then meet me at Kit’s.”

“No, no, don’t leave me-”

“I’m not leaving you.” Violet’s voice broke, and tears streamed down her face. “I promise. I promise I’m- I’m not leaving you, but if we both stay here, there’s a chance we’ll get caught. I can keep myself safe, but if- if anything happens to you… I can’t forgive myself, I-I can’t let anything worse happen. Do you- do you understand? Stay here, but teleport to Kit if- if they- if they find you.”

Quigley hesitantly nodded, and she noticed that he was crying, too. “Please come back. Don’t let them- don’t-”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Violet promised, wiping her face with her sleeve. “I told you, Quigley, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. But we have to split up, just for now. I will come back for you. And if you have to leave, I’ll find you at Kit’s. I _will_ find you.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You can do it. Just stay here, calm down-”

“I can’t let you go out alone!” Quigley yelled. “What if something happens to you?”

Violet stared at him for a moment, a million thoughts racing through her head. The two of them stared at each other in a terrified silence for a moment, and then, almost on impulse, Violet leaned forwards and kissed him.

Quigley stiffened in surprise, and Violet quickly pulled away and put a hand on his cheek, staring at him through her tears.

“I will come back for you.” she promised.

Quigley stared at her, still a bit in shock, and Violet tore herself away, running to the door. She flicked her wrist to unlock it, ran through, and locked it again.

She took a deep breath, then ran towards the sirens. She spotted the police car after turning a bend, and she stood in place, staring at it until she was sure the men inside had spotted her, and then she took off in the opposite direction of her friend.

As she ran, a million thoughts screamed at her.

_You could have tried to carry him with you._

_You could have hidden with him, or found somewhere safer to go._

_You could have given him a more concrete place to meet you._

_You could have taken him somewhere safer._

_You could have made sure he didn’t get possessed._

_You could have saved him._

_You shouldn’t have left him._

_Your fault._

Violet let out a sob, and kept running.

 

Quigley stayed in the corner, shaking and staring at the wall.

He felt like he had a fever of some kind, as his throat still felt slightly clogged, and he occasionally felt nauseous, and he kept spontaneously shaking and feeling bursts of panic, and when he didn’t, he felt blank. Too blank, like his emotions had all been sucked out of him.

But he was feeling fear right now, fear about Violet. He shouldn’t have let her go off alone, she could get caught. If she got caught… if she had to go back to the Lab alone… because he’d gone and gotten himself _possessed_ or some shit…

Quigley covered his ears, feeling a dark churning in his stomach. Something wrong was happening again, like the Shadow was screaming at him. He shut his eyes, and he saw the tunnels again- the dark, swirling tunnels, going on and on and on. He almost got dizzy, and he opened his eyes again to stare at the ceiling.

This place was too warm.

Well, at least he was safe for the moment. He could hide here, Violet would come get him soon… Violet would come back for him, and they’d find Kit, and…

He heard a door swing open, and he whipped around, seeing a uniformed employee of whatever store he was hiding in the back of entering, carrying a box under one arm. The employee stared at him in shock, and Quigley stared back.

Then Quigley shut his eyes, and whispered, “Sorry, Vi.”

_See you at Kit’s._

He thought of the warehouse, and disappeared.

 

Quigley fell into the Void, but the second he was there, he felt wrong.

Instead of feeling the nothingness, he felt a clench in his stomach, and darkness in his throat, and a screeching inside of his head.

He opened his mouth to let out a scream, but instead, he just felt more of the choking sensation, more of the thing gripping him from inside. Tears sprang to the edge of his eyes, but they felt too cold, as if he’d just started crying ice.

He had thought of the warehouse as he fell, but now he felt as if he couldn’t go there. In fact, he felt he couldn’t go anywhere. He was trapped, trapped in the Void, with a monster killing him from inside.

_No, no, no…_

He couldn’t breathe, could barely think. He struggled to move, to flail around in the emptiness surrounding him.

_Teleport out._

But where could he go?

It didn’t matter. He had to get out. He had to get _out._

 _Take me somewhere safe,_ he thought to himself, straining to focus on using his powers to get him somewhere, somewhere where he wouldn’t feel like _this._

_I don’t care where._

_I need to be safe._

When he exited the Void, everything was suddenly too much.

His tears were too hot on his face, his heart was beating too fast, his ears were pounding, his legs were shaking as he collapsed onto what felt like a floor, his hands were aching, his chest was heaving as he struggled to breathe.

He was only conscious for about three seconds, hearing what might have been some kind of scream beside him. But right before he passed out, he had two thoughts, very terrifying thoughts.

_The Shadow’s getting stronger._

_Violet’s alone._


	18. Isadora has a Panic Attack

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

_Isadora has a Panic Attack_

 

“What do you mean, ‘fear’?” Fiona asked cautiously.

Isadora stood up, starting to wander around the room, running her hand over a table that had been shoved into a corner. “It’s just… someone’s scared. Someone here, someone’s scared and I can feel it. It’s like…” she shut her eyes. “It’s like… Duncan, you know when you just have anxiety, and you’re not sure from what?”

“Yeah, like right now.” Duncan muttered, watching her carefully, as if expecting her to drop at any moment. “You’re probably feeling me.”

Isadora glanced towards him, and then shook her head. “No. No, it’s not you.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged. “It’s not… exactly your anxiety. It’s… _like_ that, but as if you _know_ what you’re scared of, but you _know_ it can’t happen. Like you hear thunder and you’re scared that giants are going to destroy your house, even though you know it’s just lightning. Or you see dark water and you’re scared of sharks, even though you’re looking into a small swimming pool in the middle of a landlocked city.”

“Anyone feeling that?” Fiona asked, glancing around.

Everyone shook their heads.

Tentatively, Sunny asked, “Cesario?” which, in this instance, meant, _“Could you be feeling Violet or Quigley?”_

Isadora took a deep breath, but didn’t respond.

“Is there something we could do?” Klaus asked.

“We could try to make you not scared.” Carmelita suggested. “I could annoy you until you get pissed at me.”

“Well, you have a good head start, Mel.” Isadora said.

“Whatever it is, you should get some rest.” Duncan said. “You’re-”

“I just slept for, like, twenty-four hours.” Isadora said sharply. “I’ll be fine. Where are we, exactly?”

“Some old house in the woods. Nobody’s been here in a while.” Fiona explained. “So nobody’ll spot us. Do you want some food? We just picked some up.”

Isadora shrugged, and Carmelita said, “We can talk more outside. It’ll be cold out there, so you can stop bitching about the heat.”

“Whatever.” Isadora said, hugging herself and glancing away.

 

They sat on the creaky back porch with the TV Dinners that Fiona had picked up for them, and Fiona explained everything they knew so far- the Gate must be acting up, as some kind of baby Monster had been near them, and the Upside Down might be somehow ruining the crops. The Gate was probably still at the Lab, so they may need to consider the possibility they’d have to break into there again.

“We’ll be stronger this time.” Fiona assured them as they all looked at her nervously. “Klaus can control his powers a little, none of us will need rescued while we’re there, Sunny can throw a fucking table if need be, so she can probably just punch open whatever doors we need-”

“Still, I’d rather not go back, thanks.” Carmelita said quietly.

“I get that.” Fiona said quietly.

Isadora kept glancing towards the woods, narrowing her eyes. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and said, “What do we know about the Lab currently? Thee government’s gotta be pissed at them right now, they lost all of us.”

“We know it’s still open, though that article we found a few months old.” Fiona said. “We’re going to want to play it safe, though. If we assume it’ll be easy, we might let something slip. Last thing we want to do is get captured while saving the world.”

“If… if we get captured…” Klaus began.

Fiona put a hand over his. “I’ve told you this before. I will get you out if I can. If they… if they kill me, you and Sunny have the most offensive powers, you’re going to have to get out first.”

Sunny nodded very seriously. “Invenio.” she said, which meant, _“And then I’ll find the others with my perception.”_

“We won’t get caught, though.” Duncan said quickly. “It won’t come to that.”

“You’ve got to be prepared in case.” Fiona said sternly. “Remember, if they find you-”

“No morals.” they all repeated.

“Especially if they have our siblings.” Klaus said. Isadora glanced away.

“Remember,” Fiona said carefully, “I will do whatever it takes to make sure they do not get their hands on you again. Stick with me, and I’ll protect you as best I can.” They nodded, and she then sat back and clapped her hands together. “On that happy note, does anyone have anything else they want to talk about?”

“I thought I saw a squirrel a minute ago.” Carmelita said. “Can I go look for it?”  

“Stay within our sight.”

Carmelita nodded brightly and jumped off the deck, her braid bouncing against her back as she raced to the nearest tree and leapt, grabbing onto a branch. They watched in amazement as she hoisted herself up, and then kept scrambling up the tree.

“Okay,” Duncan said quietly, “Who taught her how to climb a tree?”

“Was not me.” Fiona said. “I can’t balance for shit.”

“Same here.” Klaus muttered.

“Arbor?” Sunny asked. _“Can I do that?”_

“No.” Klaus said, grabbing her arm and pulling her closer. “You fall from that height, you’re not getting up again.”

“Casus.” Sunny huffed. _“I’ve jumped from farther!”_

“Are you feeling okay?” Duncan asked, glancing towards Isadora.

They turned to look at the girl, who shrunk a bit under all the attention. “I mean… it’s colder out here, yeah, but… I dunno, it’s just… still a bit weird. Like I’m still scared of something, but I don’t know what.”

“Well, there is a lot to be scared of here.” Klaus said, holding his sister a bit tighter. “We don’t have many fond memories of Hawkins, and it’s not like it’s super safe at the moment.”

“It’s still not _my_ fear, though.” Isadora sighed. “Either one of you is near an anxiety attack and lying about it, or- or maybe I-I’m still connected to the baby Monster thing- or maybe it’s just a leftover emotion from my mini-coma or whatever-”

They knew she didn’t want to admit the other possibility, and none of them mentioned it, though they did give each other a significant look.

“Whatever it is,” Duncan said, “We’ll take care of you, okay?”

“I don’t need taken care of.” Isadora muttered. “I need to figure out what’s going on.”

“I could…” Duncan hesitated, glancing down at his feet. “I could try to read your mind, figure out what’s happening.”

“No!” Isadora and Klaus both said quickly.  

“You’re going to tire yourself out.” Klaus said, reaching to put a hand over Duncan’s.

“Yeah, you also literally just woke up from passing out.” Isadora said. “That thing that happened… when we tried to- that was fucking terrifying.”

Duncan nodded. “I just… if it would help…”

“I don’t care, I don’t want to risk you passing out again.” Isadora said. “Duncan, I… I’m not losing you, okay?”

The triplets stared at each other a moment, and then they heard Carmelita call, “Hey, guys?”

“What?”

Carmelita hung upside-down from a branch, calling out, “I see something weird down the path. Can I go look, or you gonna keep me here?”

Fiona sighed. “Someone go with her?”

“I’ll go.” Isadora said, getting to her feet.

“I’ll go, too.” Duncan started to get up, but Isadora pushed him back down.

“We’ll be fine.” Isadora said. “Be back in a minute. She probably just spotted a weird bush or a bear or something.”

“If you run into anyone-” Fiona began.

“I know the drill, Fi.” Isadora said, before getting off the deck and calling, “Coming, Mel!”

Carmelita gripped onto the branch, then flipped herself off of it, landing shakily on her feet as Isadora reached the tree.

“How’d you learn that?” Isadora asked, glancing up at the tree.

“I’m a cheerleader, Izzy.” Carmelita rolled her eyes. “You gotta be athletic as _fuck_ for that.”

The two of them rushed off, with Carmelita leading the way. They ran in silence for a few minutes, before Isadora started getting a little nervous.

“What exactly did you see?” Isadora asked as they ran, glancing over her shoulder to watch the path they were taking, hoping they wouldn’t get too lost.

“It looked kinda like an animal, but maybe a lizard.” Carmelita said, and her voice suddenly sounded much more serious. “It was huge, though, digging into the dirt.”

Isadora’s heart skipped a beat. “That doesn’t sound normal.”

Carmelita glanced over her shoulder. “Well, no use freaking everyone out if it’s just a weird-looking cub, right?”

“Well, I think…” Isadora began, and Carmelita suddenly skidded to a stop. She put a finger over her mouth, signaling that Isadora should shut up. As the girls listened, they heard the sounds of digging.

Carmelita gestured, and the two peered around a tree, finally spotting the thing digging into the ground. As soon as they saw it, it looked up, almost as if hearing them, and it let out a low snarl.

They recognized its face- or lack thereof- instantly.

“Looks like baby got bigger.” Carmelita whispered.

Isadora grabbed her hand, and yanked her back, running back down the path.

 

Klaus and Duncan stared into the woods for a long time, as if they could summon Isadora and Carmelita back by sheer willpower alone.

“Maybe we should’ve all gone.” Duncan muttered.

“Isadora clearly doesn’t want to be crowded.” Fiona shrugged. “We shouldn’t bother her much.”

“She needs to be bothered, though.” Duncan huffed, turning back around. “She could be hurt, something could be wrong with her…”

“Or she could just be shaking off the effects of getting knocked out.” Klaus suggested.

“Scoprire.” Sunny mumbled, glancing into the woods. _“They’ve only been gone a  few minutes, but I still feel like we should go after them.”_

“Is that an extrasensory feeling,” Fiona asked, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “Or a normal, worried feeling?”

“Medio.” Sunny sighed. _“Normal, I think.”_

“We shouldn’t have let them wander off.” Duncan muttered. “We’re in _Hawkins,_ we should be together at all times, we should never have let them-”

“It’s been ten minutes, tops.” Fiona said. “They’ll be back soon.”

“We shouldn’t have…” Duncan paused, gripping the edge of his shirt and shutting his eyes. He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. “They-”

“Rientro!” Sunny called, pointing towards the woods. _“They’re back!”_

They turned to see Carmelita and Isadora rushing out of the woods, looking very worried. Carmelita glanced over her shoulder, before shouting, “Yeah, still following us!”

“What?” Duncan shouted as the children all leapt to their feet, with Klaus picking up Sunny as fast as he could. “What’s following you?”

They got their answer quite quickly, as what looked like a miniature Monster burst  through the leaves, letting out a familiar, terrifying screech.

Fiona instantly grabbed Duncan’s arm, yanking him behind her. She ran forwards, managing to grab onto Isadora, too, as the girls neared the deck. Klaus shoved Sunny into Duncan’s arms and raced to stand next to Fiona, almost throwing himself in front of Isadora and Carmelita. He and Fiona shared a quick look, and then Klaus shut his eyes and threw his hands out.

The Monster was suddenly tossed into the air, sharply colliding with a tree.

“I did it!” Klaus yelled, excited.

“Demogorgon!” Sunny screeched.

Fiona glanced around, quickly surveying the situation. “Klaus, think you can lift a branch and kill it with that?”

“Bullets couldn’t kill it, I doubt brute force could do much.” Klaus said.

The Monster scrambled to its feet. Now that they had time to inspect it, it seemed a lot more doglike in this smaller form; it didn’t shift to two legs at any point, and it seemed to be shaking itself, much like an animal getting out of the rain.

“Okay.” Klaus said. “I could try tossing it farther into the woods- or we could try following it to see where it goes, or-”

At that moment, Isadora suddenly let out a scream.

The teens all whipped towards her as she backed up slightly, collapsing onto a deck stair, grabbing her stomach and gasping for air.

“Isadora!” Duncan screamed, suddenly terrified.

Fiona and Klaus glanced from her to the Monster, which was watching them, almost curiously. Klaus raised a hand slightly, and then the Monster surprised them by letting out one more screech and then running into the woods.

They were very, very tempted to follow it, but then Isadora let out another cry, and they knew they had more pressing matters.

“Carmelita, get the door open.” Fiona ordered, and she ran to Isadora, managing to lift her up enough to carry her. She rushed her inside, followed closely by Duncan, who kept his eyes glued to his sister.

Fiona ran to the couch again, placing Isadora down as she struggled to breathe, her eyes shut tight.

“What’s going on?” Duncan asked, placing Sunny on the floor and kneeling by his triplet, grabbing her hand.

“I-” Isadora began, trying to sit up. “I feel- I can’t-”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” Duncan said, as everyone else crowded around the couch. “You’re going to be fine- you’re _going to be fine.”_ He turned towards the others, a pleading look in his eyes. “What’s happening to her?”

“It looks like what happened yesterday.” Fiona muttered. “When she felt the Monster.”

“So, what? She’s gonna do this until she passes out?” Duncan asked.

“No, no, we can fix this.” Klaus muttered. “Carmelita, can you try to convince her to- shit, no, your powers don’t work on us…”

“Vischer.” Sunny suggested, looking up. _“I can try to sense what’s wrong with her.”_

“No, no, that might hurt you, too.” Klaus said quietly.

“What’s _wrong_ with her?”

Isadora suddenly bolted upright, throwing her hands over her ears. “Stop it!” she screamed. “No! Stop it!”

“Isa!”

“I can’t _breathe!”_ she cried, starting to rock back-and-forth. “I can’t breathe! I-” she let out a startled scream, and Duncan burst forwards, throwing his arms around her and hugging her close to him. Isadora didn’t seem to notice; she just kept struggling to breathe, tears springing to her eyes.

“Isadora?” Carmelita looked positively terrified. “Isadora, what’s going on?”

“I don’t _know!”_ Isadora shouted. “I don’t _know anything!”_

“Isadora-”

Isadora curled up, screaming more. “It’s everywhere! _It’s everywhere!_ I- I can’t-”

“We’re right here, okay?” Duncan cried, as the teens crowded around a bit closer, and Sunny climbed onto the couch, moving over and wrapping her arms around Isadora’s leg in an attempt at a hug. “We’re here, we can help, please don’t-”

“Something’s wrong! Something’s wrong!” Isadora screamed, and Klaus wondered briefly if she could even hear them. “Something’s going wrong! I- I can’t-”

None of them knew what was happening or what to do. Klaus glanced around the group, before asking, “What can we do?”

_“Help me!”_

“We don’t know how!”

Isadora shook her head. “It’s _everywhere!_ The Shadow, it-”

Then she let out a shriek, a scream that was much louder than they’d ever thought her capable of. They leapt back, with Klaus throwing his own hands over his ears and Sunny also letting out a startled yelp. Isadora screamed for what felt like an eternity, and the exact instant she stopped, choking back a sob, something happened.

Right to their left, a boy appeared out of thin air, and then fell to the floor.

They all froze for an instant, their minds refusing to process something like that occurring. And then they all turned to stare, Fiona throwing an arm protectively over Carmelita, who happened to be closest to her.

The boy wasn’t facing them, instead struggling to hold himself up on all fours, breathing raggedly and shaking uncontrollably for a few seconds. Then he collapsed onto the ground completely, going unconscious. As he slumped, a backpack fell to the side, one of the arms torn, and it thudded onto the ground.

They all stared for a moment, and Duncan realized what had happened first.

He moved before the others, slowly releasing Isadora, who was still crying but looked like whatever had happened to her had finally passed. He stood up and carefully crept towards the figure, disbelief etched on his face. Then he dropped to his knees in front of the boy, and he slowly lifted him up, holding him as gently as he could.

They could see his face now, and it looked exactly like Duncan’s.

Duncan started to cry, and Isadora suddenly froze over, her eyes fixed on the kid. Duncan hugged him closer, and he muttered, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God…”

Very quietly, Sunny whispered, “Quig?”

Carmelita grabbed onto Fiona’s arm, confused and surprised and a little frightened. Fiona was scanning over the boy as Duncan checked his pulse, letting out a relieved cry as he felt it. Klaus stumbled backwards, before sitting next to Sunny on the couch, completely shocked.

Very, very slowly, Isadora got to her feet.

“He’s here.” Duncan muttered, tears streaming down his face. “He’s here, he’s here, he… why won’t he wake up? Wake up, please, it’s me, it’s Duncan, we’re here…”

Isadora took a step closer, staring hard at her brothers, as if she expected one of them to disappear. Shakily, she knelt next to them, and she reached out a hand to brush hair out of her unconscious triplet’s eyes. She flinched back, then, as if she’d just touched fire. Then, carefully, she put her hand back. As if making sure he was actually there.

“Isa.” Duncan managed to say. “It’s him. It’s him, he’s here…”

“Quigley.” Isadora gasped.

She was frozen for only another moment, as Duncan nodded, and then she threw herself forwards, grabbing onto both of her brothers and then holding onto them as if her life depended on it.


	19. Violet Alone

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

_Violet Alone_

 

_He’s not here._

Violet had run for what felt like forever. She’d almost been caught twice; when she’d run into the street and met another police car, and when she’d ducked into a dead end and only barely managed to use a trash can lid to lift herself onto a building roof, climbing down the other side and taking off before her pursuers could realize she was gone.

But finally she’d escaped the police, after ducking into a dumpster for about an hour until she stopped hearing sirens. Quickly, she’d swapped into her other pair of clothes, wanting to make herself less instantly recognizable to anyone looking for her. She’d snuck into a store and stole a hat, too, shoving her short hair into it.

And then she made her way back to where she left Quigley, and she’d spotted two police cars parked outside. Even then, she risked running back to the storeroom door and unlocking it, peering in carefully.

He hadn’t been there.

And then she’d spent thirty minutes sitting across the street, spying on the police cars. By the time they drove away, she’d figured out that they hadn’t caught him. So he must have teleported away.

Violet struggled to remain calm as she wandered down the streets, managing to catch another bus and hiding herself in the back, hugging her knees and hoping to God nobody came near her, she didn’t know if she had the energy to come up with a fake story, or to deal with anyone questioning her. Honestly, if somebody tried to talk to her, she might just burst into tears.

_It’s okay. You didn’t leave him. You just hid him somewhere safe, and it turned out to- to not be safe, and you’ll see him when you get to Kit’s. He knows the address, he knows where we’re meeting. He can take care of himself._

_No, no, he can’t. Maybe he could if he wasn’t fucking possessed…_

_He’s not possessed._

_He_ is. _Something’s hurting him. And I just_ left him.

_It might’ve been worse if you forced him to run with you._

Violet grabbed her bag, hugging it to her and burying her head in it, muffling a frustrated scream.

_He’s got to be okay._

_He’s got to be._

She kept her face in the bag as she let out a groan and felt her face go red.

_Did I seriously kiss him?_

She shouldn’t have done that. Yeah, she liked Quigley a lot. A _lot._ But he was terrified, he was already sick and confused and he didn’t like being touched anyway, and they had a mission to do and didn’t have time for complicated feelings. They didn’t have the luxury of attempting anything romantic- they were living on the street, trying to take down a government lab that wanted them dead at best. That wasn’t a scenario that would lead to a stress-free relationship. And she’d just messed it up because… why? She’d been stressed? She’d been impulsive? She hadn’t been thinking, and now she’d probably just confused him. Besides, he probably didn’t even like her like that anyway; why would he? She’d probably just fucked up everything, now it was going to be all awkward or tense or some shit.

_And that’s just if you find him._

_No, stop it! I’ll find him._

“I’ll find him.” Violet mumbled to herself. “I didn’t leave him.”

 _“You left me, though.”_ she heard Klaus’s voice in her head. _“And Sunny. You just left us, and you left him, too.”_

“No!” she said, barely managing to hold herself together. “I didn’t leave anyone! I’m going to find him!”

She didn’t get a response, so she sat in silence for the rest of the ride.

 

_August 1984_

 

“Quigley?”

Quigley glanced up as Violet sat next to him. They were sleeping in a field tonight, having run into the woods to avoid some police that had spotted them sneaking out of a store and gotten too lost to return to town before night fell.

“Yeah?”

Violet ran a hand through her hair, looking a bit nervous. “Um, you…  you’ve been a bit upset today.”

Quigley froze. He’d been hoping she wouldn’t notice. “Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologize, I… I know why.” she muttered. “It’s… God, this is stupid.”

“What?”

“I…” Violet’s face went a bit red. “This’ll just make you feel worse.”

“That’s a bit impossible, Vi. Just… go ahead.” He had a suspicion about what she was doing, and he’d rather get it over with.

Hesitantly, Violet reached into the front pocket of her bag, and pulled out something wrapped in an old newspaper. She passed it to him, glancing down at the grass.  

“Happy birthday.” she muttered.

Quigley’s heart sank, as he stared down at the package. Slowly, he unfolded the newspaper, and a compass fell into his hands.

“Saw it a few towns back.” Violet said quietly. “I thought it might make you feel better, I assumed this wouldn’t be- wouldn’t be very happy, unless we finished our mission before- I’m sorry, I shouldn’t-”

“No, it’s- it’s okay.” Quigley said, forcing a smile on his face, running his hand over the edge of the compass. “I love it.”

“You don’t have to-”

“No, it’s… it’s great.” He glanced over at her. “Thanks for thinking of me.”

Violet glanced between him and the ground, trying to figure out if he was being genuine or not.

“I… I have some presents for my siblings, too. In my bag.” Quigley admitted. “I was hoping it wouldn’t take this long, but… maybe next year. Or whenever we find them.”

“It will be soon, I’m sure.” Violet paused, and then she said, “I have stuff for Klaus and Sunny, too.”

Quigley nodded, and he held out his hand, which Violet took quickly. “It’s… I’ve never had a birthday alone. It… this kinda sucks.”

“Our lives suck.”

“True.” Quigley grinned over at her. “But, hey, I’m the same age as you now.”

“Only for, like, a month.” Violet said, cracking a smile. “Then I’m fifteen.” Her face fell again. “We’re missing so much.”

“Yeah.”

“I… Mother and Father, on Klaus’s last birthday, they fucked up the bread pudding, and it was awful, but we ate it anyway- except Sunny. She just… threw it into the air. Mother and Father said he’d have a real birthday dinner this year.” She bit her lip and glanced away. “I hope he’s got something good.”

Quigley flipped over the compass in his hands again. “We always did everything together on our birthday. We’d do a scavenger hunt, or a bunch of board games, or we’d go find something to do in town, like see a bunch of movies in a row, try to sneak into an R-Rated one. There was… there was an arcade that was going to open a week after our last birthday, and Mother and Father promised to take us, but…” He shut his eyes. “You know what happened just a few days later.”

“Yeah.”

“It… it’s been a year, Vi.”

“Yeah.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Violet said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

Quigley put the compass in his bag, and then he hugged her.

Next month, Quigley quietly got her a box of ribbons. They both knew why, they  both knew the date. And they sat and cried together for a little bit.

But Quigley still had the compass, and Violet still had her ribbons. They were something nice, even if they weren’t strictly necessary. Something they’d given to each other.

 

_November 1984_

 

Violet was standing outside the door of the apartment building, shaking and desperately wishing she was brave enough to open the door.

_He’ll be there. He’ll be there. He’ll be there._

_Kit will be there. You two can find her._

_You’re almost done._

Finally unable to take it, Violet pushed open the door and walked into the lobby.

And she was very distressed to see that it was empty.

Violet raced through the large room, looking from chair to chair, as if Quigley might be hiding, or she might have missed him. But, indeed, he wasn’t anywhere nearby.

_No, no, no, no, no…_

She saw a man waiting for the elevator, and she ran up to him, saying, “Excuse me, sir? Have you seen a boy around here? He’s- he’s about my age and height, black hair, dressed like it’s summer?”

The man shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Would anyone know? We were supposed to meet here, and-”

The elevator doors opened, and he said, “Sorry, kid. Maybe he’ll show up later?”

Violet felt like the world was spinning, and she nodded as he left. “Yeah. Yeah, maybe… maybe…”

She stumbled backwards, and then moved to one of the chairs, almost sinking into it, feeling dazed. She dropped her bag to her feet, and she curled up, staring at the wall, shaking a little.

_He’s not here._

_He’s not here._

_He’s not…_

She buried her head in her knees and cried.

She didn’t know how long she was sobbing, she just knew that she was feeling too cold and too tired and too stressed and too hurt to just keep going.

He was gone.

She’d lost him.

She’d _promised_ that she would protect him, she told him it would be okay, and now he was _gone._

She was crying so hard, she only barely heard a faint voice ask, “Excuse me, are… are you okay?”

“No!” Violet shouted, her voice broken. She didn’t even bother to look up. “No, I’m _not!_ He… I- I was supposed to meet him here and he’s _gone._ ”

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure… I’m sure he’ll be along.”

“He was supposed to _be here._ ” Violet sobbed. “And I left him. I-I-I _left him._ I _lost him._ I lost him!”

She felt a warm hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, is there anything I can do?”

Violet shook her head. She just wanted to be left alone.

“Can I call your parents? What apartment are they in?”

Violet could barely say, “My parents are dead.”

She probably should’ve lied. But she didn’t have the energy.

“Oh.” There was a long pause, and then, “I’m sorry. I could- I could call the police, if you-”

“No!” Violet screamed, shooting her head up in a sudden panic. “No, no, don’t-”

And then she froze.

And so did the woman speaking to her.

Violet stared for a long time. She looked just like the photo of her in the newspaper.

There was a long pause, while the woman looked at her with the same shock, a vague recognition clicking in her mind. “Oh, God.” she said quietly. “You’re-”

“You’re Kit.” Violet gasped.

Surprised, the woman stopped talking. Slowly, Violet reached forwards, pulling back the woman’s sleeve, and indeed seeing a _002_ inked onto her wrist. She pushed up her own sleeve and pulled off the ribbon tied to her wrist, showing her the _007._

“My- my name’s Violet.” she said quietly, tears still falling. “I’m Beatrice’s daughter, I- I need your help, I-”

“You’re Violet.” Kit repeated softly.

And then, overcome with everything that was happening to her, Violet threw herself onto Kit, hugging her as tight as she could and continuing to cry.


	20. Quigley is a Cryptic Mess

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

_Quigley is a Cryptic Mess_

 

“It’s Day Three-Hundred and Fifty-Two.”

Klaus sat on the couch, glancing over at Sunny. Fiona and Carmelita sat on the floor, only occasionally looking up at him, trying to hide their concern but not succeeding very well.

Everything in the last few hours had been a bit of a blur. Quigley hadn’t woken up since he appeared; while he occasionally stirred, muttering something about a shadow under his breath and kicking off any blankets they put over him, he didn’t ever seem very conscious. Isadora and Duncan refused to leave his side, and Isadora didn’t let go of him for an instant. She’d been crying nonstop, resisting any attempts to pry her away from Quigley in order to check him over for potential injuries. Duncan, who kept alternating between crying and quietly smiling to himself, only moved away from his triplets on occasion- when Fiona found a room with a bed, he pulled away from his brother in order to help carry him over there, and he numbly nodded along while they told him that they’d take care of the perimeter check and everything else while he and Isadora stayed with him, and to tell them if anything happened, and then they’d just left him and Isadora with their brother.

Klaus assumed they wouldn’t want to join in the call, now that their brother was actually back. But he didn’t want to just skip tonight.

“Sorry about last night.” he said into the radio, and Sunny leaned onto his arm. “I was stressed, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m… I’m sure you’re trying to find us.”

He looked to the floor again; Fiona and Carmelita had taken the bag Quigley had appeared with and emptied it on the floor. They all felt a bit bad about this, in case this was some breach of personal space, but the kid wasn’t waking up anytime soon and they needed to have some idea what was happening. Both of the teen girls were reluctantly sorting through it while Klaus talked; he’d offered to help, of course, but they told him and Sunny that they could lend a hand once they finished the call.

Klaus took a deep breath, looking to Sunny. She carefully grabbed the radio, and said, “Caotico,” which, in this instance, meant, _“Quigley appeared today, but he’s unconscious right now.”_

“Yeah, and we… we were kinda hoping he was with you.” Klaus said quietly. “Maybe he was, but then that means you’re alone _now…_ I just… I hope you’re okay.”

They were silent for a moment, as Carmelita folded spare clothes and Fiona spread smaller items around herself.

Then Sunny leaned towards the radio and said, “Luce,” which meant, _“And Klaus moved a bus today!”_

Klaus laughed slightly. “Yeah. Yeah, I moved a bus today. That didn’t seem important, though-”

“Eccezionale!” Sunny shouted. _“But it was so cool!”_

Fiona suddenly pulled something out of the bottom of the bag, and froze for a moment in surprise. “Hey, Klaus?”

Klaus and Sunny glanced at each other, and then Klaus said, “We’ll keep you updated. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Vale!” Sunny said. _“Bye!”_

Klaus put the walkie-talkie down, and he moved to sit beside Fiona as Sunny climbed off the couch. “What is it?”

Fiona glanced down at her hands, and then said, “Look what was here.”

Klaus looked, and he suddenly felt shock ripple through him.

“Oh.” Sunny gasped.

Fiona was holding a dark-colored ribbon.

 

They didn’t mention it to the triplets until the next morning.

They’d all crashed in the living room, and woken up a bit later than they normally did. Fiona and Carmelita went into the kitchen to find them food, and asked Klaus and Sunny to check on the triplets.

The two of them stood outside the door, and they remained there for a few minutes, wondering if they should intrude.

“Intramus?” Sunny asked, glancing up at her brother. _“Can we go in?”_

“Maybe…” Klaus paused. “I mean, we have to, eventually. I just… don’t want to bother them, they just got their brother back.”  

“Vitta?” Sunny asked. _“But what about the ribbon? We need to ask Quigley about it.”_

Klaus sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out the strip of fabric. It was the same kind that Violet liked, and just the right length; and he should know, Violet showed him at least three times how she cut her ribbons. And it was even the same color as her favorite ribbons had been before the fire.

The siblings supposed there were probably some possible alternate explanations for the ribbon being in Quigley’s bag. But their minds were very fixated on the one they wanted most.

Slowly, Klaus pushed the door open. Sunny raced in first, and Klaus hesitantly followed.

Isadora and Quigley were still asleep; Quigley seemed to have kicked the blankets away, but Isadora was still wrapped around him, her head resting on his shoulder. Duncan was next to them, sitting up and jotting something down in his commonplace book, pausing only to rub his eyes and yawn a bit. Sunny climbed onto the bed, calling, “Dun!”

Duncan jumped and looked up, and then he smiled as he saw the Baudelaires. “Hey.”

“How’s Quigley doing?” Klaus asked, moving forwards and sitting on the edge of the bed.

“He, uh, hasn’t woken up yet.” Duncan said, hesitantly putting his notebook and  pencil onto a sidetable. He looked down at his brother, and gently brushed his hair out of his eyes. “He feels a bit cold, too. But he’s stopped muttering, and moving around so much, so I think he’s getting better.”

“Good.” Klaus said. As Sunny glanced between Duncan and Quigley, trying to spot any difference in their faces, Klaus hesitantly continued, “How are… how are _you_ doing?”

Duncan paused, still staring at his brother. “It’s weird. It feels weird, I haven’t seen him in a year, and now he’s just… _here._ He’s _here_ , Klaus. I just… I keep expecting to wake up and realize this was all a weird dream, and he’s still gone, but… no. No, he’s right here.”

Klaus bit his lip and nodded, and Sunny let out a whimper, quietly enough that Duncan didn’t hear.

Duncan suddenly realized something, and he looked up at Klaus, looking startled and guilty. “Oh! We forgot to call last night-”

“It’s fine, Sunny and I called Violet.” Klaus assured him.

“A-alone?”

“It’s…” Klaus paused. “I figured you guys wouldn’t want to call- I mean, Quigley’s right here. And we weren’t alone, Fiona and Carmelita were there… speaking of which…”

Klaus glanced down at Quigley and Isadora. They were asleep still. Slowly, he continued, “We went through- through Quigley’s bag.”

“You did what?” Duncan stiffened. “Klaus, that stuff might be personal.”

“Duncan!” Klaus pulled out the ribbon and held it out. “He had _this.”_

It took a long moment for Duncan to realize the implication of Quigley having a ribbon in his bag. “You… you think that’s proof, then? That he was with Violet?”

“The only way we’ll know is if we ask.”

Duncan nodded, glancing down. “I… I’ve been hoping I could ask him some questions, myself. I want to know where he’s been, if he’s been safe, if… if anything happened to him… he doesn’t seem _well._ And why hasn’t he teleported to us before now? Was there something keeping him? Was… did he just not _want_ to find us?”

Klaus reached forwards, grabbing Duncan’s hand. “Of course he wanted to find you. Don’t say that.”

“I… I just…”  

Quigley muttered something, and they turned towards him, watching as his eyes blinked open.

“Quigley!” Duncan shouted, and Klaus quickly grabbed Sunny and dropped her onto the floor.

“Sunny, go get Fiona and Carmelita.” he said. “Tell them he’s awake.”

Sunny nodded and scampered off, as Duncan helped his brother sit up, holding back tears. “Hey. Hey, are you okay?” Duncan asked.

Quigley looked a bit confused, but otherwise very passive. Klaus watched him carefully, feeling incredibly on edge, though he didn’t know why.

“Where’s…” Quigley began, and then he paused, thinking hard.

Isadora slowly sat up, too, rubbing her eyes and staring at her brothers, still shaking slightly as her gaze fell onto Quigley. She edged forwards, grabbing onto her brother’s arm. Quigley flinched slightly, turning to her with a fear behind his eyes.

“Quigley, it’s us.” Isadora said, as soon as she could. “It’s us, we’re here.”

Quigley narrowed his eyes slightly. “Is… Isadora?” She nodded, smiling a little, and he turned towards his other triplet. “Duncan? What are you…?”

“You finally found us.” Duncan said. “You finally came.”

Quigley shook a little, glancing between his siblings, his voice barely above a whisper. “I was… I was going somewhere else… and-and then I got stuck.”

“What are you talking about?” Klaus asked.

Isadora shot Klaus a look, but Quigley didn’t even seem to hear him. “I was… I was supposed to go… I was… where are we?”

The others all stiffened a little. “We’re… in Hawkins, bud.” Duncan said.

“No.” Quigley said instantly. “No, no, we’re not-”

“We’ll keep you safe.” Isadora said, clutching onto his hand. “We promise, we’re not losing you again, you’re going to be okay.”

“He wanted me here.” Quigley whispered, raising his other hand to his head. “He wanted me here and I came like an _idiot…”_

“Quigley!” Duncan moved slightly, trying to put his arm around him, but Quigley flinched back.

“Don’t _touch me!”_

Duncan and Isadora instantly jumped back, looking regretful. “Shit, shit, sorry.” Duncan said.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Isadora said. “I just… it’s been so long, Quig, we’re sorry.”

The door creaked open again, and they looked up to see Fiona walk in, followed by Carmelita, who was carrying Sunny. Quigley leapt back, grasping onto the edge of a pillow, as if preparing to throw it. “Whoa!” Duncan said, jumping to his feet and throwing a hand in front of his brother. “Quigley, it’s okay! These guys are friends.”

Quigley looked over them, confused. “Friends?”

“They’re like us.” Isadora said quietly. “They’ve got numbers.”

“Numbers.” Quigley repeated softly. “I was supposed to…”  He narrowed his eyes, as if trying to remember something. “Supposed to…”

He shook his head, shutting his eyes and hugging his knees. Isadora slowly crept closer to him, her voice shaking slightly as she said, “Quigley, we… we’re so glad you’re back. We missed you _so much…”_

Quigley glanced over at her, his face a little worryingly blank. Then he said, “I think I missed you, too.”

Isadora stared for a second, and then she let out a bit of a laugh. “You better have, you idiot.”

Quigley allowed himself a small smile. “Are… are you two okay?”

“Of course we are.” Duncan said. “You’re back.”

Fiona edged forwards, sitting besides Klaus at the edge of the bed. “Quigley, my-my name’s Fiona.” Quigley turned towards, her, looking a bit confused as his eyes darted between her and the other kids. “This is Klaus, and those are Sunny and Carmelita. Me and Carmelita were in the… the Lab, too. We’d… can you answer some questions?”

“He’s tired.” Isadora said protectively, glaring at her. “Give him a minute.”

“He’s had a minute.” Fiona said sharply.

Klaus couldn’t take it anymore; he leaned forwards, holding out the ribbon. “Where did you get this?”

Quigley looked down at it, confused for a moment.

“Stop crowding him!” Isadora shouted.

“Izzy, chill!” Carmelita said, placing Sunny down on the bed. “He can answer a couple of things.”

“Why do you _have this?”_ Klaus asked again.

Quigley still stared at the ribbon, as if his mind was taking forever to process that it was in front of him. Then, quietly, he said, “Where’d you find that?”

“You had this in your _bag.”_ Klaus said. “Was it for Violet? Do you know-”

“Why were you going through my bag?” Quigley suddenly seemed angry. He glared up, a dark look in his eyes.

“You showed up out of nowhere and crash-landed into our living room!” Klaus said. “We just wanted to see-”

“That’s my _stuff!_ ” Quigley shouted. “You’re not supposed to-”

“Do you know Violet?” Klaus yelled over him. “Was she with you?”

Quigley opened his mouth, as if to answer, but then he just reached forwards and grabbed the ribbon. Klaus let out a shout, but Quigley rapidly backed up, holding the ribbon tightly in a closed fist and hugging himself.

“Hey!” Klaus yelled, suddenly feeling panicked. “Give that _back-_ ”

“Leave him _alone!”_ Isadora shouted, pushing Klaus back.

“He needs to tell us stuff!”

“He doesn’t need to do _shit!”_

“Everyone calm down!” Fiona shouted, pushing Klaus and Isadora a bit farther away from each other. “You are _not_ helping matters by bitching at each other.”

Klaus took a deep breath, and then glared over at Quigley, who didn’t seem to notice. Sunny carefully crawled over to sit on her brother’s lap, glancing between all the other teens; they all looked incredibly on edge.

Finally, Duncan moved a bit closer to Quigley, sitting as close to him as he dared. He waited until Quigley glanced over at him, and then he asked, “Quigley, where have you been? In the last year.”

Quigley stared at him, that same confusion flickering across his face. “Last year?”

“While you were gone. What happened to you?”

Quigley shut his eyes, and then he said, in almost a whisper, “The Shadow got me.”

“The what?” Isadora jumped.

“The Shadow. In the Upside Down.”

“The Monster?” Duncan asked hesitantly.

“No. The Shadow.”

“Oh, shit.” Carmelita muttered under her breath, and everyone understood her feelings there.

“What’s the Shadow?” Isadora asked.

Quigley shook his head. “It’s… it’s here. It’s… I can’t… I don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t…”

“It’s okay!” Duncan said quickly. “You… you were never great at words, were you?”

Quigley took a slow breath. “I just… look, I just know that I was… I kept seeing it.  The Upside Down, without teleporting there. And then it was _there._ The Shadow. It kept chasing me, a-and it caught me, and it’s… still here. It got me and it’s inside me-”

“It’s _what?”_ Isadora looked horrified.

“And I keep seeing…” Quigley clutched onto the ribbon, then, gripping it as if it were the only steady thing in the world. “These stupid tunnels, I keep seeing memories that aren’t mine, memories that are… happening _now.”_

“What the fuck does that mean?” Carmelita asked, looking more and more bewildered every second.

“I don’t _know.”_ Quigley said. “It’s like I can… feel what he’s feeling. See what he’s seeing.”

“The… ‘Shadow’?” Isadora asked, her voice shaking.

“You said he was… in the other world?” Duncan asked, edging a bit closer to  his brother.

“Some of him’s there.” Quigley said distantly. “But some of him’s here.”

“Here?” Fiona asked.

Quigley’s voice broke a bit. “In me. It’s like… he’s reaching. Into our world. Into me. I can… I can feel him, spreading. I can see tunnels, but I don’t know… and I can see, I can _remember_ … I don’t know how to explain it. I… these… these feelings, they aren’t like maps, not like something that’s easy to talk about, I can’t just _explain…”_ His eyes flew open, then, some idea obviously coming to him.

“Quigley?” Duncan glanced towards Isadora, hoping she shared his confusion.

“Maps.” Quigley said.

“What about them?”

“Get me paper.” he said. “Lots of it. I’m seeing a path, and I can map it out.”

“I got some paper while we were in town.” Fiona said hesitantly. “In case we needed to plan something. Do you-”

Quigley just gave her a nod, and then took the ribbon, pushing up his sleeve and tying it around his _010_ tattoo.

“I can map it.” he said.

“What are you mapping again?” Duncan asked.

“Just get him his paper.” Isadora snapped.

“I can get it.” Klaus said hesitantly. “Unless- Quigley, please, can you-”  

Quigley didn’t even glance at him; he had a faraway look in his eyes. “I can map it.” he said quietly. “I can do something. Then we can go…” he shut his eyes again. “We can… I was supposed to go somewhere, we were… trying to find…” He shook his head. “I need to map it. I need…”

Klaus took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to get anything out of Quigley in this state. “I’ll get the paper.”

“Imus.” Sunny said quickly. _“I’ll go, too!”_

Klaus picked up his sister, giving the Quagmires one last glance, as if waiting for one of them to say something. Quigley had started to rock back-and-forth, much like Duncan did whenever he was trying to think of something. Isadora wasn’t looking away from him, as if she still couldn’t believe he was there. Duncan was fiddling with his hands, watching his brother with quite a lot of concern. Klaus glanced to Fiona, who was scanning Quigley with her eyes, trying to decipher if he was a threat. Carmelita kept bouncing her leg and tugging on her braid, as if trying to figure out what she should be doing. Slowly, Klaus left the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Pera?” Sunny asked, which meant, _“Where’s the bag?”_

Klaus didn’t respond, but he carried her into the kitchen, spotting the bag shoved into a corner of the room.

Instead of going to it, he slowly put Sunny down, and then walked into another corner, leaning against the wall and slumping to the floor.

“Kla?” Sunny ran towards Klaus, who’d buried his head in his knees. “Maesus?” she asked, which meant, _“Is something wrong?”_

He didn’t respond, and his sister realized very quickly that it was because he was crying.

Carefully, she sat beside him, and he knew that she understood how he felt; they both wanted to be happy for Duncan and Isadora, to be helpful and work with Quigley to figure out what was happening to Hawkins.

But they also wanted Violet back.

Sunny leaned her head against his arm, shutting her eyes, as Klaus kept quietly crying.


	21. Kit Snicket catches up

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

_Kit Snicket catches up_

 

Kit had eventually managed to get Violet to move from the lobby to her apartment. Violet had refused for a while, sobbing and shaking her head and insisting that Quigley might still come, and she couldn’t just let him show up and find himself  alone, but Kit had promised her that she’d make sure she left a message for him, and that she’d tell friends to look out for him, and that Violet really needed to clean up and get some rest.

“When was the last time you slept?” Kit asked, on the elevator ride up to her apartment. Violet shrugged. “Okay, well, you can take a shower, I have a spare room you can use, I can clean your clothes for you, do you have a spare set? I can call-”

“No.” Violet shook her head, terror striking her again. “No. Nobody can know where I am, they’ll find me. Please, please, don’t tell anyone that I’m here.”

Kit stared at her for a long while, and Violet could tell that she was trying to piece together something in her head. Finally, she nodded, and said, “Alright.”

“Can you help me?” Violet asked quietly. “We need to-”

The elevator doors opened, and Kit shushed her. “It’s late, and you need to clean up. I’ll make sure everything’s alright, see if I can get a message to your friend. We’ll talk about everything in the morning, okay?”

Violet hesitantly nodded, and followed Kit down the hall.

 

When she woke up the next morning, it took her several minutes to remember what was happening.

It seemed unreal; first, she was _clean_ , and in a _bed_ , in a warm apartment without a fear of being caught by the person who owned the place. Second, and less happily, she was alone. She hadn’t really been alone since the Lab, and it was unnerving; now that she was awake, she wondered how she’d slept at all last night, the room just seemed so empty and lonely. Besides, that meant Quigley was alone, too, and knowing that just made everything worse; she’d need to find him soon. Even if he wasn’t sick, she didn’t want him too far away from her for too long. She didn’t want him to be on his own. She didn't want to be separated from him. 

And third, she’d finally found Kit.

She sat up in the bed, lost in thought, for a long while, occasionally rocking slightly or hugging her knee. It was like a dream, one that she wasn’t entirely sure wouldn’t end up becoming a nightmare. What would happen if she had been followed, or she got caught, or the Lab found them both, or the Lab got to Quigley while she was gone, or if she and Kit failed in whatever plan they’d come up with…

_Shut up, and just go talk to Kit. Find out whatever you can, and then take down the Lab._

Violet stood up, running a hand through her hair- which, she was glad to find, was a lot easier to wash when it was short- and glancing around the room. She’d only taken her spare clothes out of her bag, leaving everything else inside, not wanting to get too comfortable. Kit had taken yesterday’s clothes to wash them while Violet was in the shower, and she’d been gone when Violet went to sleep, so she hadn’t had the chance to ask if she could keep her leather jacket; even though she still had two layers on, she felt a bit cold without it. Slowly, she ran a hand over her ribbon, which she’d re-tied around her tattoo. At least she still had that, though she wasn’t entirely sure how to use it.

Then she took a breath, and went out the door.

She wandered into a living room, which, even though full shelves lined every wall, had books scattered and piled up across the floor. Violet smiled slightly as she stepped through them on her way to the kitchen area, thinking about how Klaus would absolutely love this place. She paused just outside the doorway when she heard Kit talking, jumping slightly, wondering if someone had come over while Violet was asleep. She realized quickly, however, that Kit was talking on the phone.

“No, I don’t _care_ whether or not I can actually have that. Get it to me, it’s important… No! God, listen, it’s work-related…”

Violet wondered whether or not this was worth eavesdropping on, and eventually she decided it probably wasn’t; she just seemed to be yelling at another librarian. She walked in and glanced around, hugging herself slightly as Kit, leaning onto the counter while listening to whoever was on the other end of the phone ramble on, finally noticed her. She started slightly, then gave her a weak smile and said into the phone, “Look, something came up. I’ll expect it in the mailbox by tomorrow night.” She hung up, then, and said, “Did you sleep alright?”  

Violet shrugged, but shot her a smile, not wanting to be rude. She sat hesitantly on one of the chairs, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Who was that?”

“Work associate.” Kit said, grabbing two cups of tea she’d prepared and moving to sit by Violet. “Unfortunately, my librarian friends aren’t too fond of me. Apparently it’s ‘dangerous’ to ‘drive a car into a hedge’ and I’m ‘going to ruin all of their books.’”

Violet giggled slightly, and then asked, “Have you heard from Quigley?”

Kit shook her head, and Violet tried not to look too frightened or disappointed. “But my friends are on the lookout, and I’ve alerted a few neighbors. Don’t worry, I didn’t mention you or why I’d like to find him, but I told them that if they see a young boy in the lobby, to ask if he’s here to see me.”

“We should go look for him.” Violet mumbled. “I shouldn’t have left him alone…”

“He’ll be alright.” Kit assured her. “And my friends are on the lookout. I called in sick to work today- it’s technically not a lie, I felt pretty bad yesterday so I had to stay home then, too. But, I was thinking, maybe we can drive around later, check anywhere he might be.” Violet hesitantly shrugged. Kit smiled at her, and then said, “Well, let’s start from the beginning, I guess.”

Violet nodded enthusiastically, taking a quick sip of tea and flinching slightly when she realized how bitter it was.

“Do you…” Kit hesitated. “Remember me at all?”

Violet froze a moment. “Sh-should I?”

“I suppose not.” Kit smiled a little. “You were only four when… I recognized you, in the lobby, though, when you looked up. You look just like your father.”

Violet smiled. “Really?”

Kit nodded. “I’m sure a lot has changed since I’ve seen you, though.” Then, before Violet could respond, she asked, “Have your… have your abilities awakened at all?”  

Violet hesitated, before nodding; she didn’t see any reason why she _shouldn’t_ tell Kit. “I’m Ferrokinetic.” she said. “I can manipulate metal.” She held out her hand, and watched as a fork sailed off the counter and landed on her palm.

“Really?” Kit said, looking a bit fascinated. “I would’ve thought you’d have the same powers as your Mother, or-”

“My siblings have different powers, too.” Violet mentioned offhandedly. “Klaus is telekinetic, and Sunny’s got enhanced strength and intelligence.”

Kit paused a moment. “You have another sibling?”

Violet nodded. “Sunny’s… well, she’s got to be two years old, now. It’s been three-hundred and fifty-two days since I’ve seen her. Wait… no, three-hundred and fifty three.” She realized, with a sinking heart, that she’d missed last night’s radio call. Had she missed the night before, too? How many had she missed? She’d have to catch today’s.

“Three-hundred and fifty-three?”

Violet nodded. “Oh! Sunny and I also have some extrasensory perception. Hers seems to be more direct than mine, though.”

“Extrasensory Perception.” A faint recognition was in Kit’s voice. “One had the most of that.” Violet flinched, and Kit said, “Sorry, Jacques. Old habits.”

“Did he?” Violet leaned forwards slightly. “What did you all have? Mother could control fire, I… know that.”

Kit nodded. “She loved her ability the most out of all of us, I think. Sometimes, when we were all together, she’d make some flames dance for us. Tried to make images out of it.” Kit paused there, looking curiously at Violet. “She did that for you, when you were a baby. She’d make little figures out of the fire to entertain you and Klaus.”

“I… I don’t remember that.” Violet said, straining her memory and not finding anything. “My… earliest memory is teaching Klaus to jump rope, when he was three.”

That was a bit of a lie, but technically, the Rainbow Room memory had been brought out by her extrasensory perception, it wasn’t… wasn’t a _normal_ memory. Anything else she knew from the Rainbow Room came from that, not a normal recollection. Really, her first true memory was her singing jump rope songs to help her brother keep his balance, and then Father gently suggesting that maybe they shouldn’t be doing that in the living room.

“You mean she stopped?” Kit asked, sounding a bit upset. “She used to love everything to do with her fire.”

“I guess she changed her mind.” Violet said numbly.

Kit sighed. “Well, anyway, um, Jacques did have the most perception, to the point where he could close his eyes and…  how did they put it? ‘Project his consciousness somewhere else.’ He could really see anything he wanted. And he refused to let us use this ability for pranks.” She sighed slightly. “You said you and your sister had Perception? Can either of you get into the Void?”

Violet jumped. “The what?”

Kit laughed a little. “It was just a dumb name your Mother gave to the place Jacques could go when he was focusing too hard. He’d tell us that he’d close his eyes, and disappear into this… dark place, and then he could see other people. Couldn’t talk to them, but he’d hear everything, and he could transmit their voices to the radios.”

“I can get Klaus’s voice on the radio, sometimes.” Violet said. “But… the Void’s Quigley’s thing.”

“What?”

“Quigley teleports.” Violet said. “And when he disappears- sometimes he can bring me along- he goes to something that sounds like Jacques’s Void. Except we don’t stay for more than a few seconds.”

“Fascinating.” Kit said quietly. “I wonder if it’s the same place, or if you’d be able to go there.”

“I don’t like it much.”

“Still, would be interesting to find out.”

“What about the others?” Violet changed the subject quickly. “What could the other experiments do?”

“Blank Slate could shapeshift.” Kit said. “Change anything about herself. She liked to give herself long hair sometimes, when nobody was looking. But she could never quite get her eyes to change. Always green.”

“She’s the Zero, right?” Violet asked. “Ellington Feint? I… saw a photo of you guys as kids, and she didn’t have a number.”

“They were concerned that she might not be able to shift away a tattoo.” Kit said. “So they just never gave her one. She always felt a bit left out that she didn’t have a number like us, but, well, she got to go into town more often, so…”

Violet bit her lip. “What about your other brother?”

Kit smiled very sadly as she said, “Lem had… God, what did they call it? Psychometry. He’d touch something and absorb information from it. Like, he could touch a bench, and find out how long it had been there, who built it, who’d been sitting on it recently, when it had been cleaned, who cleaned it, what they were thinking while they  did. He got overloaded a _lot_ , he hated it. I offered him gloves like mine, but he didn’t like any we gave to him. Just didn’t like the feel.”

“I can understand that.” Violet said softly. “There are things I hate wearing for no real reason. Klaus and I cut the tags off of our shirts, cause we can’t stand them, and Sunny refuses to wear certain fabrics.”

“Lem couldn’t stand tags on his clothes either,” Kit reminisced, “Or wet socks. He had a hat once, that he refused to take off until Mr Feint confiscated it; apparently he’d been smuggling notes in with it.” After a pause, she asked, “Did your Mother tell you about him?”

“She didn’t…” How to put this politely? “She and Father didn’t tell us anything about their lives before us. We… we didn’t even know you all existed until after…” She shut her eyes.

“Oh.” Kit said.

“What about you?” Violet asked, wanting to change the subject back.

Kit hesitated a moment, glancing back-and-forth as if someone else might be watching. Then she held out the palm of her hand, and Violet watched, amazed, as a butterfly landed onto it.

“How did-” Violet began, only for her words to catch in her throat as the blue butterfly wings suddenly shimmered, and shifted into a dark green. It flew up into the air, wings changing color at the speed of light, and then fluttered a bit closer to Violet. She reached up, trying to touch it, only to jump as it passed right _through_ her hand.

It flew back to Kit, who caught it in a fist. When she opened her hand, the butterfly was gone.

“Illusions.” Kit said, a bit proud at Violet’s amazed reaction.

“Holy shit.” Violet said.

Kit jumped slightly at her language, but nodded. “I can make others see, or not see, whatever I choose.”

“That’s amazing.”

Kit looked very happy at how impressed the girl was. “Well. Been practicing since I was your brother’s age, so I might as- he is thirteen, right?”

Violet nodded. “That he is.” She’d missed his last birthday, and she felt absolutely awful about it.

“I figured, he’s two years younger than you, and you would be fifteen now… God, it’s been eleven years since… well, that doesn’t matter.”

“What-”

Then Kit continued, and Violet suddenly felt very cold. “Olaf’s Clairvoyant, he just… knew things. Kind of like Lemony, but he didn’t have to touch anything. He could look at people and, if he focused, know things about them, things that had happened, or were going to. It only occasionally didn’t work, and he’d get all-”

“Can we not talk about him?” Violet asked.

Kit looked a bit confused. “Why-”

“Just. Don’t.”

They were silent for a moment, before Kit said, a bit awkwardly, “You’ll probably want breakfast. I don’t know what you’d like. I have… I can make pancakes, or-”

“It’s fine, I don’t eat much.” Violet said quickly.

Kit seemed a bit concerned with that answer, but she just said, “We’ll get something later. I wanted to know wh-”

“How did you get out?” Violet interrupted. Her face went a bit red, and she said, “I’m sorry, you were saying-”

“It’s fine. What do you mean?”

“How did you…” Violet hesitated. “Escape the Lab?”

“Escape the…” Kit froze for a moment, staring down at her tea. Then she shook her head and said, “That’s a very long story, one I… don’t think you’ll want to hear.”

“I do!” Violet said quickly. “I need to know everything, _we_ need to know everything, we need to shut them down!”

“Shut them down?”

“Of course.” Violet said quickly. “We need to stop it, and then everything will be okay, then they’ll stop _chasing us,_ then we’ll be _safe…”_

“Whoa, whoa.” Kit said, and Violet realized that she’d been getting too worked up. “Why don’t… why don’t you tell me what’s happened to you?”

Violet’s heart sank slightly. “A lot has happened to me.” she admitted.

Kit took a slow, deep breath, and then asked, rather quietly, “You said… last night, you said your parents were dead. Was that… true?”

Violet bit her lip and nodded.

“Beatrice is- and- Bertrand?”

“They killed them.” Violet said shakily. “I… I fucked up, and my abilities set off in public, and I didn’t- they never told me I might have them, so… Mother and Father, I mean. They never told me or Klaus that- they didn’t even tell us what our marks meant.” She ran a finger over the ribbon on her wrist. “Just that we had to hide them. And then… they- the Lab found us, they set out house on fire, they…” She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the memory that still flared up in her mind, as if it had just happened. “They killed them. Mother and Father.”

Quietly, Kit asked, “You’re sure?”

Violet held back tears. “I saw. I was right next to Mother when…”

She could almost still hear the gunshot, feel her Mother’s hand slipping out of hers. She remembered the terror she’d felt, the second she finally processed what was happening, and she remembered screaming, and the cars lifting into the air…

“They took me.” she said quietly. “To the Lab. They fucking _drugged_ me, and beat the shit out of me, and told me if I didn’t stop fighting they’d take Klaus and Sunny… they… they could have…” she gripped the edge of her shirt. “They… they opened a Gate, a gate to something bad, and I… I found Quigley there. We escaped, but my siblings… they’re on the run, with Quigley’s siblings, and two other escapees. I haven’t seen them in _so long…_ they would’ve killed them. They would’ve killed _me._ I just… Kit, we have to…”

Violet stopped herself before she could start crying, gripping onto her sweater and taking slow breaths. She finally turned towards Kit, who was staring at her tea. Finally, she said, “I don’t think they would’ve killed you. They’d threaten that sometimes, but I don’t think they’d ever actually do it. There weren’t very many of us, and if they wanted to study what they could do to people, they couldn’t just get rid of their experiments. They couldn’t afford to-”

“They _were_ going to kill me.” Violet said, certainty in her voice. “They would’ve killed Klaus, too, he wouldn’t have survived there. They almost killed Quigley, he…” She shut her eyes. “We need to find him. He can’t be on his own. He’s sick, too, he…”

“We’ll find him.” Kit assured her. “And I’ll try to help you, if I can.”

Violet nodded, and then Kit said, “Why don’t I find you something to eat, and then we can go out?” Violet shrugged, and as Kit got up, she tried to focus, to stop feeling so shitty.

_Kit’s going to help you. She’s going to help._

_We’re almost done._

But first they had to find Quigley. Hopefully he hadn’t gone far.


	22. Quigley gets to be a Cartographer

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

_Quigley gets to be a Cartographer_

 

“What the fuck is that?” Carmelita asked sharply, and Isadora quickly elbowed her in the ribs.

Quigley was drawing much faster than they would have expected. Isadora had handed him colored pencils that she’d had in her bag- she said something about how he liked drawing maps with different colors most of the time- and he only paused to switch between them, drawing intersecting lines over the paper, trying to speed things up as fast as possible. He hadn’t looked up from the paper for the last several minutes, a look of concentration on his face that very much resembled his siblings’. It was almost uncanny, Sunny realized as she glanced between Quigley and his triplets, how similar they looked. If Quigley’s hair wasn’t slightly darker and slightly longer than Duncan’s, it might be hard to tell them apart. Though as Sunny focused, she noticed a small scar under Quigley’s eye, and one on his cheek, and she wondered how long he’d had those.

“What exactly are you doing?” Fiona asked carefully.

Quigley didn’t respond, or acknowledge that anyone had said anything. He just kept sketching lines across the page.

“Does he… normally do this?” Klaus asked.

“Course not.” Duncan said quickly. “He usually gets really focused, yeah, but-”

“Quigley, you don’t look good.” Isadora said hesitantly. Quigley didn’t even glance her way.

“Quig, what is this?” Duncan asked.

Sunny glanced over at Klaus, who was standing by the window, still staring at the ground; he still wasn’t doing very well, she could tell. He wasn’t even really looking at the map, instead choosing to keep himself as far from the conversation as possible.

“Hipparchus?” Sunny asked. _“It’s a map, we know that, but what is it a map of?”_

“It looks vaguely familiar.” Fiona muttered.

“Not to me, but I’m not good at paying attention to anything.” Carmelita said.

Fiona paused, and then said, “You know what? We should go.” She looked at Duncan and Isadora. “You two stay with your brother, we’ll be outside, let us know when… _this_ is done.”

They hesitantly nodded, and Fiona picked up Sunny, who let out a sharp cry of protest; she could _walk_ now, she didn’t need to be carried everywhere! Carmelita shrugged and followed Fiona as she walked out the door, and Klaus hurriedly caught up to them, occasionally shooting Sunny a glance.

“Okay,” Carmelita said, as they ducked into the kitchen, “Their brother is _super_ freaky.”

“Don’t be rude.” Fiona said.

“Did you not _see_ that?”

“He said he’s possessed.” Klaus said cautiously, watching as Fiona placed Sunny onto the counter.

“Yeah, can the Monsters do that?”

“He said it was some other thing.” Fiona said quietly, leaning against the wall. “A Shadow of some kind.”

“Shadow Monster.” Klaus said.

“I do _not_ remember that ever attacking us.” Carmelita said. “Did it show up in the Lab while I wasn’t looking?”

“No, it’s probably new. Or didn’t bother with us last year. Or couldn’t travel dimensions.” Klaus said.

“Isadora said something about a Shadow, right before Quigley showed up.” Fiona  recalled. “She probably hooked onto his emotions as he was teleporting to us.”

“I think Duncan might’ve mentioned something, too, when he read the Monster’s mind.” Klaus said. “But I don’t remember much of that, it was… quite a blur.”

“Clearly it’s some kind of creature from the other world,” Fiona said, “Which is apparently possessing the kid.”

“If it’s possessing him, are we sure it’s actually him, then?” Klaus asked. “What if he’s not even, like, present? What if the Monster’s talking through him?”

“Merrin.” Sunny said. _“If the Monster was talking through him, it wouldn’t recognize Duncan and Isadora.”_

“Hopefully we can figure out what’s going on and stop it before this gets any worse.” Fiona said, adjusting her glasses and glancing to the side. “Still, that map did look familiar…”  

“Um.” Carmelita said. “Quick question?”

“What?”

Carmelita glanced between Klaus and Fiona, before saying, “If he’s possessed… what does that mean for you two?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Klaus asked.

Carmelita took a sharp breath. “You all are… connected, right? So… if he’s possessed, is that going to affect you all?”

Fiona opened her mouth, as if to dispute this, but as Carmelita’s words hit her, she paused, wondering if she might be right. She turned towards Klaus, who had frozen over, hugging himself tightly and shaking a little.

“Juntar?” Sunny asked. _“That can’t happen, right? You all are going to be okay?”_

“I…”  Klaus glanced towards her. “Yeah. Don’t worry, Sunny, it’ll be fine.”

He was clearly lying to her, and Sunny gave him a glare. Before she could say anything, though, Fiona started, looking up.

“I just got it.” she said.

“What?” Carmelita asked.

“The map.” Fiona said.

She rushed to her supply bag, picking it up and digging through for a moment,  before pulling out a map of Hawkins she’d picked up from the general store. She rushed over to the counter, laying it out besides Sunny.

“Look at this.” Fiona said. “Klaus, do you remember the blue lines Quigley was drawing? Don’t they look like the main roads?”

Klaus narrowed his eyes at the map, and then said, “Holy shit.”

“He’s just drawing us a map of Hawkins?” Carmelita asked skeptically. “We’ve got one of those, we don’t need one of his.”

“First of all, stop being rude.” Fiona said. “Second-”

“Queensway.” Sunny said suddenly. _“Tunnels.”_

“What?” Klaus asked, as they all turned to look at the toddler, who was running a tiny hand over the map.

“Queensway.” Sunny repeated, and then she said, “Siloam,” which meant, _“Quigley said he kept seeing tunnels, and he wasn’t just drawing the roads, he was drawing other lines, too. He could be drawing a tunnel system.”_

“I don’t think there are any tunnels here,” Carmelita said, “At least not that I know  of.”

“It’s not a bad theory.” Fiona said.

“Puto.” Sunny shrugged. _“I could try to find out with my perception.”_

“No!” Klaus said. “You’re not doing that.”

Sunny bristled. “Cupio.” _“I want to help.”_

“You’re not doing that.”

“Cupio!”

“We can discuss this in a minute.” Fiona said as she grabbed the map. “Let’s see what Quigley has to say for himself.”

 

Quigley kept drawing, narrowing his eyes as he swapped pencils, swirling over the paper.

“Do you think he’s okay?” Duncan asked quietly, as soon as Fiona shut the door.

“He’s right here, he can probably hear you.” Isadora responded, eyes glued to the paper.

“He’s not responding.”

“He’s focusing.”

Duncan sighed. “Isadora, he’s sick. He’s possessed or some shit.”

“I…” Isadora shut her eyes. “I know. I can…”

Duncan hesitated. “You feel him?”

“Not a lot.” she admitted. “And I don’t know if I want to risk trying to feel more, but… he’s feeling overheated. And tired. And… you know that sick feeling you have when you’ve got a cold and you just want to lay down and sleep until you feel better? He’s got that.” She glanced towards Quigley, then down at the paper; he was slowing his sketching. “Looks like he’s almost done.”

“I fucking hope so.” Duncan said.

“Quigley?” Isadora glanced over at her brother. “You good?” He didn’t respond. She sighed and took a deep breath, gripping onto her shirt. “Quigley, if you start to feel worse, you tell me, okay? We’ll fix it.”

“He’s not gonna talk.” Duncan said. “I could try to read his mind-”

“No!” Isadora said.

“It might _help,_ I might understand-”

Quigley suddenly started, and his triplets jumped as he dropped his pencil. He blinked in confusion for a second, as if he wasn’t entirely sure where he was. Then he sat back, saying, “Did… did I…”

“Are you okay?” Isadora asked quickly, grabbing his arm. He flinched back, and she let go, quickly saying, “Sorry! Sorry.”

“ _I’m_ sorry, I just…” Quigley began.

“We know, you don’t like being touched, I just-” Isadora said.

Quigley shook his head. “It’s… they used to grab me, a-all the time, and I…” He shut his eyes, as if confused again.

“‘They’?” Duncan’s eyes widened. “The people at the Lab?”

Quigley nodded slightly. “I can’t really remember- wh-what happened exactly, it’s all a blur, it’s- so much is blurry now…”

Duncan and Isadora shared a horrified look. Then, Duncan said, “That’s awful. We’re… we’re sorry.” he took a quick breath. “Do you… remember, a year ago, when I asked you about what they did to you?”

“A little.”

“Were you…” Duncan hesitated. “Being honest? About-”

“I don’t lie to you.” Quigley said.

They stared at each other for a moment, and then Isadora muttered, “I’m going to kill them. Those assholes, I’m going to… God, Quigley, we’re never letting them hurt you again.”

“It’s not _them_ I’m worried about right now.” Quigley muttered, curling up a bit more. “Shadow’s a bit more of a pressing issue. He’s gonna be mad.”

“What?”

“I don’t think- I probably shouldn’t have drawn that.” Quigley gestured to the map. “I… he’s seeing those. That’s how I see it, I’m seeing what he’s seeing, and he… he’s in the tunnels, or he’s sending them into the tunnels, and… I don’t think he wants you to know…”

Duncan and Isadora shared another look, and then, reluctantly, Duncan said, “Maybe that’s good.”

“What?” Quigley and Isadora both said.

“You said you can see what he sees.” Duncan said. “Maybe you can spy on him. Figure out what he wants. You already gave us this map, you could get us all the information you want.”

“Duncan-” Isadora warned.

“Maybe we can stop him.” Duncan said quickly. “We find out what he’s seeing and feeling and trying to do, and we stop him. And then he can’t hurt you anymore.”

Quigley shook slightly. “Wh-what happens if… if he spies back?”

“We won’t let him.” Isadora said, knowing full well they didn’t know if that was possible.

At that moment, the door flew open, and Fiona rushed in, running to the bed and slamming a paper next to Quigley’s drawing.

“What the _fuck!”_ Isadora yelled, jumping.

“Knock next time!” Duncan said, as the others ran in, Klaus carrying Sunny.  

“Look at this.” Fiona said excitedly. “This is a map of Hawkins. Look at the main roads.”

“What about them?”

“They’re the blue lines.” Carmelita said quickly.

Isadora glanced between Quigley’s map and Fiona’s, realization dawning. “Quigley, did you draw a map of Hawkins?”

“I… I don’t-”  

“You said you were seeing tunnels.” Fiona said. “Are these other lines- are those tunnels?”

“The green lines look like rivers.” Klaus said, dropping Sunny on the bed and looking over Fiona’s shoulder. “All the spots of water.”

Quigley hesitantly nodded, shuddering slightly.

“These red lines go around them.” Duncan pointed out. “Kind of mapping the entire area.”

Sunny looked up at Quigley and asked, “Rubrum?” which meant, _“Are the red lines the tunnels?”_

Quigley stared at her in total bewilderment for a few seconds, before Klaus said, “Oh, uh, she was asking if the red lines were the tunnels.” They’d all kind of forgotten that he probably didn’t understand her.

“I…” Quigley shut his eyes. “I think… I think so…”

“How do we get in?” Fiona asked.

“I’m sorry,” Isadora turned towards her, “What was that?”

“Obviously not all of us.” Fiona said. “Quigley can’t move, and we don’t want everyone going in anyway. But if he’s seeing these things, if they’re important to the Upside Down, we should figure out why that is.”

“And why Quigley can see them.” Duncan nodded.

“You shouldn’t go.” Quigley said shakily. “He’ll find out I drew the map, he’ll-”

“Isadora, Duncan, stay with your brother.” Fiona said. “We’ll need to find the entrance, so Sunny’s with me, Ca-”

“No!” Klaus said quickly, grabbing his sister. “She’s not going!”

“Kla!” Sunny shouted, sounding upset.

“We’re going to need to find the tunnel entrance.” Fiona said simply. “She’s the only one whose perception expands to the level that it’d be useful.”

“She’s not going anywhere near this mess! She’s a baby!”

“No!” Sunny suddenly shouted, pushing on Klaus. “Pono!” _“Put me down!”_

“Sunny, you’re not going-”

“Discedo!” Sunny shouted. _“I want to go! Let me help!”_

“Sunny, you’re _two_ , you’re-”

Sunny started kicking, angry again. “Pono! Pono!”

Quigley threw his hands over his ears, and Carmelita called, “Klaus, God, put the kid down before she screams our ears off!”

Klaus finally did put Sunny on the ground, and she quickly ran to Fiona, shooting him a glare. “Via.” Sunny stated. _“I’m going to help, I’ll go to the tunnels.”_

“I’ll go, too.” Klaus began.

“No!” Sunny huffed. “Nix!” _“I can take care of myself!”_

“She’s right,” Carmelita said, avoiding Klaus’s eye. “Both she and Fiona are going, meaning two-thirds of our offensive powers are ditching this place. You should stay here in case someone attacks the triplets.”

“But-” Klaus began.

“I’ll go with them.” Carmelita shrugged. “Make sure they don’t do anything stupid. Besides, it’s super dark out, so nobody’ll see me and wonder what I’m doing in town.”

“I…” Klaus began.

Sunny sighed, and then walked a bit closer to him. He knelt down to get eye-level with her, and he said quietly, “Please, Sunny. Don’t go. I don’t want you out of my sight, I’m scared that- I’m scared that you’ll disappear, too. Sunny, I can’t-”

Sunny put a hand on his face, and said, “Sospes,” which meant, _“I’ll be alright. I’ve got super-strength, and Fiona’s got poison. Not much could hurt us.”_

“Sunny-”

“Parvela.” Sunny said. _“I’ll be okay. Let me do this, Klaus.”_

Klaus took a breath. “I-”

Sunny backed away, then, and turned back to Fiona. “Emigro.” _“Let’s go.”_

Fiona carefully nodded, and then said, “Klaus. I won’t let anything happen to her.”

Klaus didn’t even look at her. He just watched after Sunny as she ran off with Carmelita, followed by a hesitant Fiona. He stayed on the ground for a while, and then he slowly got up, turning to look at the Quagmire triplets; Isadora and Duncan were watching him, while Quigley was still covering his ears, staring down at the maps.

“She’ll be okay.” Isadora said quickly. “She’s a hell of a lot stronger than she looks, right?”

Klaus was still quiet. Slowly, he sat on the edge of the bed, hugging himself and shaking slightly.

Then he said, “I… I don’t…”

“Do you want a hug?” Duncan asked.

Klaus nodded, and Duncan carefully pushed the maps towards Quigley so he’d have room to get to his friend, throwing his arms around him. Isadora hugged him, too, and none of them noticed Quigley quietly lowering his hands from his ears, and run his hand over the ribbon, staring at it as if he felt he should remember something about it, but he didn’t know what.


	23. The Tunnel Expedition goes about as well as Expected

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

_The Tunnel Expedition goes about as well as Expected_

 

“So.” Fiona said quietly. “Are you sure you want to go?”

Sunny was sitting in Carmelita’s lap in the shotgun seat, still a little miffed that Fiona wouldn’t let her drive. She nodded at the older girl, determination in her eyes.

Fiona sighed. “You know your brother’s just scared for you, right?”

“Raef,” Sunny said, _“I know. But I can help. I can find the tunnels for you.”_

She didn’t say that she desperately wanted to help, that she’d been feeling a bit patronized lately. She didn’t say that, maybe, if she got better at finding things, she might be able to find something more important than some mysterious tunnels. She didn’t say that she just really, _really_ wanted out of the house, so she didn’t have to think about complicated feelings- how was she supposed to differentiate between the happiness that Duncan and Isadora’s brother was back, the fear that something was wrong with him, and the sadness that her sister couldn’t be here, too?

She didn’t say any of that; instead, she stared at Fiona, trying to communicate just how resolved she was. Then Fiona nodded and started the van, and Sunny shut her eyes, leaning against Carmelita, who was uncharacteristically quiet.

She focused, then, clenching her small fists and humming slightly, letting her mind wander into those thoughts that would point her in the right direction.

“Sinistra.” she said quietly. _“Left.”_

“Alright, then.” Fiona said. “Left it is.”

 

Carmelita started getting very, very nervous after several minutes driving down a suburban street.

“Sunny,” she said carefully, “You’re sure you’re going to the tunnels?”

Sunny nodded, before gesturing to the right. Carmelita took in a sharp breath as they turned.

“Is something wrong?” Fiona asked.

“A little.” Carmelita admitted. “It’s probably nothing.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. It’s just… I know this street, and if we take a left-”

“Sinistra.” Sunny said.

“Goddamnit.”

Sunny glanced up, seeing that Carmelita did look extremely uncomfortable; she kept tugging on her braid and darting her eyes around the roads outside. As Sunny stood on her tip-toes to peer out the window, too, she did feel a vague, uneasy familiarity.

“What exactly is worrying you, and will it directly affect the plan?” Fiona asked.

“I don’t think it’ll… I mean, it _could_ , but-”

Sunny let out a cry, signaling that they should stop.

_“Damnit!”_

They parked, and Sunny looked out the window again, and she suddenly understood why Carmelita was so upset. “Oh.” Fiona said, also realizing.

“Well.” Carmelita said quietly. “There are definitely worse circumstances I could’ve come home to.”  

 

Fiona carried Sunny as they exited the car, watching as Carmelita shakily shut her door, slinging her bag over her shoulder and glancing over at the house behind her as if it could attack them at any moment.

“Sunny, please tell me the tunnel entrance isn’t in Esme Squalor’s house.” Fiona said.

Sunny paused, thinking, then shook her head. “Dietro.” she said, which meant, _“Behind it. Somewhere.”_

“Do you think she’s still here?” Carmelita asked quietly.

“Hopefully not.” Fiona said. “Hopefully she left after the Lab attack.”

“Hopefully she won’t notice a van parked in front of her house in the middle of the night.” Carmelita added, hugging herself a little.

“We’re on the street, technically. Not like we’re in her driveway.” Fiona shrugged, and then she started walking, Carmelita at her heels. “Alright, Sunshine, let’s find the tunnels.”

“Maybe it’s in the woods.” Carmelita suggested. “Or, hell, maybe she’s just taking us to the Gate in the Lab.”

“Sunny, please tell me you’re not taking us to the Lab.” Fiona said, her voice lowering as they passed the side of the house.

Sunny shook her head slightly. “Non,” she muttered, which meant, _“I don’t believe so.”_

“Great, cause I don’t think I’d like to be _there,_ too.” Carmelita said. “One homecoming per day, thanks.”

“Maybe we should’ve let more of the others come.” Fiona mumbled.

Carmelita shook her head. “The triplets needed to stay with their brother, and Klaus can protect them. We’ll be fine.”

“Still-”

Sunny cried again, and they stopped. Carmelita glanced to their left, and let out a groan.

“The _Shed?_ Really?”

Sunny sighed and nodded, and Fiona glanced over at the small construction beside them. “What’s this again?”

“The Shed,” Carmelita said, moving to the door and kicking it open, “You know, where Esme used to send us when she didn’t want us in the house. Just let us sleep here.”

“Oh. Right.” Fiona narrowed her eyes. She glanced towards the house behind them, and then said, “If she _is_ in there, you want me to pop in and poison her?”

“No! You’re gonna get us caught!”

“Not if I’m quick enough.”

“Don’t bother.” Carmelita sighed. “Sunny, get us to these tunnels.”

“In.”

They went into the Shed, and Sunny kicked Fiona slightly until the older girl put her down onto the ground. Sunny walked across the floor, keeping her eyes shut and looking incredibly focused. Then she dropped to a corner and put her small hands onto the edge of a floorboard. She thought for a moment, and then pushed down. The board flipped, and across the floor, a trapdoor opened.

“Nice work, Sunshine.” Fiona said.

Carmelita just stared at the trapdoor for a moment, and then said, “Holy fuck, how long has  _that_ been there?”

Fiona walked over, peering in as Sunny wandered over towards them, wiping a bleeding nose on her sleeve.

“This leads to the tunnels, I assume.” she muttered. “Someone should stay out here and guard, make sure the door doesn’t close.”

“I’ll do that. You take the baby ex machina.” Carmelita volunteered.

“Would you be alright with that, Sunny?”

“Ye.”

Fiona reluctantly pulled a flashlight from her bag and turned it on, before using her other arm to pick up the toddler. She glanced down at the darkness below, considering, and then Carmelita said, “Go on, Fi. She who hesitates is lost.”

Fiona gave her a playful glare, and then leapt down.

She landed pretty soon; it wasn’t that far of a drop. Fiona shone the flashlight around, seeing an old, dusty chair pushed up against the wall, and some kind of map across from it; there were two directions they could take, two tunnels they could follow. Fiona walked up to the map, and Sunny ran a hand over red lines sketched across it.

“It looks kind of like Quigley’s.” Fiona said, thinking back. “These red lines look like his, don’t they?”

Sunny _hmm_ ed, before catching sight of faded writing at the bottom of the map. She squinted, trying to focus on it, as if she recognized it but couldn’t place from where.

“You sensing something?”

She didn’t respond for a minute, and then she just shrugged. “Beckett,” she said, which, in this instance, meant, _“Let’s go on.”_

Fiona nodded slightly. “Looks like these tunnels stretch very, very far. If these are what Quigley’s seeing- if the Shadow is here- that’s not good. If the Monster could get in here, who knows where it could end up.”

“Bad.”

“Yep.”

Fiona shone the light around more, and said, “Which way?”

Sunny considered, then pointed left.

The two girls walked down the tunnels in silence, glancing around; it didn’t seem very dangerous, just a little dark and damp. Sunny leaned against Fiona’s shoulder, a little bored.

“Try to remember which turns we’re taking.” Fiona said, as Sunny kept gesturing directions. “So we know how to get back.”

“Ritorno,” Sunny said, which meant, _“I can get us back.”_

“Still, try to play it safe.”

Sunny sighed, playing with her shirt fabric. “Zee.” she muttered, which meant, _“I’m getting tired.”_

“I know. We’ll go a bit farther, then turn…”

Fiona trailed off, as she stepped on something that made a squishing noise.

The two girls froze for an instant, and then Fiona pointed the flashlight down, and she saw that she’d stepped onto some kind of mold.

“Oh.” Sunny said.

Fiona crept farther down the tunnel, stepping carefully onto the mold, which they realized, as she shone her light farther, completely covered the ground before them, as well as the walls. And all they had to do was turn a bend to see vines start to appear.

“Fuck.” Fiona said softly.

“Fuck.” Sunny repeated.

“Watch your language.”

Fiona glanced back, wondering if they should go. But they hadn’t really found out anything, had they? Just that the tunnels looked very… well, they looked a lot like what they’d seen of the Upside Down, what little they knew of it. But why? And how far did they go? It didn’t look like the whole tunnel, just sections…

“Beckett.” Sunny said.

“You’re right, let’s go just a bit farther.” Fiona said hesitantly. “But be prepared to punch something should it come to that. Your super-strength still working fine?”

Sunny considered, then said comfortingly, “Stritolare,” which meant, _“I could probably split you in half right now if I wanted.”_

“Nice to know.”

“Ye.”

Fiona stepped over roots, trying to ignore what might be movement out of the corner of her eye, which was probably just the shadows her flashlight was creating, she should stop being so paranoid. It was probably just shadows, just ignore it, Fiona, you shouldn’t hesitate…

She turned another bend, and the girls found themselves in a very large room, completely covered in what looked like webbing and slime, specks of dust falling from the ceiling. Fiona took a few careful steps, still shining her light around.

“The hell…?”

“Fi…” Sunny said quietly, suddenly gripping her arm.

“I know, I know. Don’t worry, we won’t-”

Fiona then shone her light towards the ground, and jumped back, letting out a startled shout. She’d just seen a pile of bones and the carcass of some kind of small animal, and she quickly turned around, saying, “Sunny, don’t look!”

Sunny stiffened, shutting her eyes instantly and grabbing tighter onto the older girl, starting to shake. Fiona suddenly realized, then, how small this girl was.

_Oh, God. She’s just a toddler._

“Okay.” she said quietly. “That’s it. We’re getting you out of here.”

“Fi!”

Fiona turned back towards the tunnel they’d come from, starting to run and almost tripping over a root. She skidded to a stop, then, eyes going wide.

“Sunny?” she said. “Didn’t we come from this way?”

Sunny opened her eyes, and saw what Fiona did; the wall had apparently closed up behind them.

“Fuck.” Sunny said.

 

Carmelita waited above the tunnel, hugging herself and keeping her eyes shut. She should go after them, she felt, but it had only been a few minutes, they’d be back soon, nothing could happen to them, they were the strongest members of the team, they’d be okay…

It was so surreal, though. Being in this shed again. She’d been here plenty of times, even before the triplets arrived in Hawkins. Whenever Esme needed a break, or got too annoyed, or was bringing people from the Lab over for a meeting in the house. And eventually Carmelita had figured out she could just sneak out and convince a kid from school to let her have a surprise sleepover, but that still didn’t mean she didn’t find herself spending more time than she’d like in here. And not once had she suspected there was a secret passage under the floor.

And the house was right outside. The house she’d spent so much time in, the only home she’d had outside the Lab. She wondered if her stuff was still there; she’d only had time to grab a little before they ran off with Fiona. She wondered if Esme was still there… no, Fiona was probably right, she was probably long gone. She wondered if anyone else lived there. She wondered if anyone from the Lab was there. If anyone could notice them, just a few feet away…

She heard a creak, and turned to see that the door had swung open. She hesitantly got to her feet; it was probably just the wind, but…

She heard what sounded like claws step onto the wood.

_Shit. Shit, shit, shit…_

The small, faceless monster entered the shed, turning towards her, cocking its head in surprise.

Carmelita stared at it for a moment, wondering what she should do. Maybe she could talk it into going away? Her persuasion did seem to work on most animals… but then again, this wasn’t a normal animal. What if she used her abilities on it and something happened to her, like what had happened to the Quagmires?

“Hey.” she said quietly.

The monster suddenly rushed, and Carmelita, for an instant, stepped back, about to throw her hands over her face.

Then she realized it wasn’t heading for her.

It was going for the tunnel.

“No!” she screamed, and she ran to the trapdoor, slamming it shut.

The Monster slid to a stop, and then let out a growl, raising its tail, perhaps as a warning. It opened its face, showing its teeth and letting out a familiar screech.

Carmelita wanted to just freeze up and scream again, but she wasn’t about to let the thing get to Fiona and Sunny. So she reached into her bag, pulling out a snack bag and throwing it at the monster, hitting it right in the middle of its face. It stepped back in confusion, choking slightly and spitting it back onto the floor, and Carmelita started running.

“Yeah! Come get me!” she yelled. “Come on, bitch! Fight me!”

It screeched and gave chase as Carmelita got out of the shed. Which was good, because that meant it wouldn’t get to her friends.

But bad, because it meant she was being chased by a Monster.


	24. Violet goes shopping

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

_Violet goes shopping_

 

“Are you okay?”

Violet hesitantly glanced around the diner again. They’d just stopped in for lunch, but she felt incredibly uncomfortable the entire time. Mainly because she wanted to get back on the road to find Quigley; they’d been out all morning, checking any spots he may have gone to, but Violet didn’t feel like they’d have much luck. All of the places he’d probably think to go to were very far away, and she didn’t know if Kit would be willing to drive for an hour to go to an abandoned warehouse. Though, of course, she was also a bit nervous because she hadn’t eaten legally in a restaurant for a while. Even before the fire, her parents only rarely took them outside the house for meals. And, also, she was constantly worried that someone would recognize her and call the cops, and she didn’t know if Kit would be able to talk her way out of that. Though she supposed Kit might be able to turn her invisible, or maybe Violet could make something float and they could use that as a distraction and then run…

“Hey. Violet.”

Violet looked up. “Sorry, just… zoned out.”

Kit nodded. “You should really finish your food, then we can head back out.”

Violet sighed. “I just… it’s weird.”

“I get that.” Kit said. “First time I went into town after experiments started, I always felt like I was doing something wrong. But I got home on time, so-”

“They let you outside?” Violet asked, stunned.

Kit shrugged. “Of course. I behaved, so I didn’t get grounded. I mean, that _was_ before Fou- before Lemony ran away, but they had to put up extra security after that. Anything could have happened to him.”

“He ran away?”

“Yes, when he was fourteen. We were all so worried, anything could’ve happened to him…  he’d been talking about doing it for a while, but we didn’t think he actually _would.”_

“Why wouldn’t he?”

Kit considered for a moment. “Just… the streets are a dangerous place for a  young kid to be. I-I’m sure you know.”

“It’s better than in there.”

“And also, he… didn’t like doing things alone, and the rest of us wouldn’t go with him, so when he just snuck out while we were in town… well… he was alone, and couldn’t do much, and he got overwhelmed a lot, and we just… when they brought him back, he was…” She shut her eyes. “I’m never going to forget that. He was so _hurt,_ he could barely think straight… and after that, they couldn’t risk the rest of us running off, so Ellington was the only one allowed out, and Bertrand was only allowed in because his Mother vouched for him. Besides, if he didn’t get to talk to Beatrice and Lemony, he might’ve thrown a fit and broken in himself.”

Violet felt a spark of sadness at the mention of her father, but she was a bit interested in that last bit. “Father was friends with your brother?”

“Oh, yes. Whenever we got put into the Rainbow Room inbetween tests, and he happened to be there, it was like the rest of us didn’t exist; he’d just sit in the corner with Lem and Beatrice and show them his homework and whatever cool toys he’d managed to smuggle in. And when they got older, he brought them extra books he liked, or notebooks they could write in, or…” she smiled a little. “He got your Mother a necklace once. She refused to take it off, she always loved Ellington’s locket and now she had one of her own. She liked to show him her fire tricks, too, and Lem would come up with wild stories for them to listen to…” she sighed. “I miss that.”

Violet stared at her food for a moment, feeling both sad and confused; she’d never thought about her parents as kids, and she’d never assumed they’d have… well, they _must_ have had childhood friends, but they’d literally never even mentioned this boy they were apparently so close to. Instead of asking more about that, she just asked, “Did you say you were in the Rainbow Room?”

“Do you remember the Rainbow Room?”

Violet flinched. “A- a little. I saw it once while I was… when I was there last year.”

“It’s basically the daycare room, though they mostly just left us alone in it because Jacques and I were old enough to watch the others.” Kit explained. “It was really the only time we saw each other, we’d spend most of our day testing, barely had time for breaks. You were in there a bit as a toddler; you and the other kids would be in there while your parents did testing. Your Mother was the only full-time experiment, I believe, but I met Quigley’s parents once or twice, they were relatively new, and then there was this other little girl in there with you all… I think I only saw her Mother once, after some accident happened in the room and they all came to pick you up.”

“Fiona.” Violet said quietly.

“Yes, that… but, well, as I was saying, we only really saw each other on occasion, us full-time experiments. We were testing most of the time, and when we got home we were too exhausted to say more than a few words to each other.”

“You didn’t stay overnight at the Lab?”

“Not until after Lemony’s escape. But it didn’t really matter, we were barely at that old house anyway. And after a few years, Beatrice got to buy her own place.”

“Is that when she married Father?”

Kit nodded.

“Well,” Violet said quietly, “I didn’t get that much freedom. Neither did Quigley, and he was there a lot longer than I was.” She paused, and then sad, “What happened to you guys after-”

They heard the door open, and Violet immediately snapped to attention, eyeing the family coming in with instinctual suspicion. She stared at them for a while before turning back to Kit, who looked a bit concerned. “You’ve done that with everyone who entered.” she stated.

Violet shrugged. “I’m kinda…  I told you the police have been looking for me, right?”

“Yes, and you… also mentioned there might be multiple reasons for that.”

“Guess I’m just…” Violet paused. “Paranoid. Someone could recognize me, you know? I’m not even wearing different clothes, really, I can only carry the two outfits, so it’s not like I’d be hard to spot.”

Kit watched her for a moment, considering, and then she said, “Well, we can probably fix that. I can get you a new outfit or something on our way to the next stop.”

Violet’s face went a bit red. “No, no, you don’t have to-”

“It’s alright, really. Seriously, how long have you had just those two pairs of clothes?”

Violet considered. “Uh, I got this shirt while dumpster-diving a few months ago, these jeans were from a store Quigley and I broke into over the summer, and… can’t remember the shoes, they were probably from the trash, and the sweater-”

“Good God.”

 

Kit did manage to get Violet into a store, assuring her constantly that it wasn’t a bother and they wouldn’t take long, they’d go back out to find Quigley soon. Violet nervously glanced around the racks of clothing, sticking close to Kit and keeping her hands in her pockets, eyes darting from one corner of the room to another.

“Just… pick a few things.” Kit said awkwardly. “I’m not sure what you’d like.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Violet said quickly, running her hands over a sweater. “We just need something practical. I already have a jacket, once I get that back I can just use that, I guess I could replace this sweater-”

“That doesn’t matter. Just take something you think is cute.”

Violet shook her head. “If we get stuck outside, we’re going to want to be warm, we don’t want anything too loose, it’ll get caught-”

“Violet,” Kit said softly, “Do you really think I’m just going to let you out on the street again?”

Violet started; no, she really _hadn’t_ , but… it was a bit hard to break that mentality. “W-well,” she said, “I just… we might have to be on the run if our- if we try to shut down the Lab and they go after-”

“That won’t happen.” Kit said assuringly. “Just get whatever you want.”

Violet hesitated. “Wh-whatever I want?”

“Yeah. It’ll be fine.”

She looked around the store again, confusion overwhelming her paranoia for a moment. She hadn’t bought clothes based on preference since before the fire, and even though she knew that was only about a year ago, it seemed more like a century. She ran a hand over her ribbon again, and said, “W-well, I…”

She glanced over at Kit, seeing that there was a sad recognition in Kit’s eyes there. Violet bet that it must’ve been hard for her to pick out her own outfits after she got out, too. She bit her lip, and then said, “I used to… I liked dresses a lot, but… I don’t know. I might like some overalls. I used to get some with pockets, so I could carry extra tools with me.”

“I think those are over there.”

Violet paused, and then followed Kit’s directions, feeling a bit of a lift in her chest. She’d never really liked shopping, but she’d also never considered it a luxury before now. There were a lot of things she supposed would feel different once she finally got to do them again- doing history schoolwork, washing dishes, going to bed on time, all that stuff, stuff she’d hated before. It’d be strange to finally do it all again.

But hopefully they’d find Quigley soon, and then the three of them could formulate a plan, and then the Lab would be gone, and they’d get their siblings back, and then they’d all figure something out.

And then everything could go back to normal. Or, well, as close as they could get.

 

Violet changed into her new clothes before they left the store, smiling a little as she fiddled with the edge of her sleeves. She hadn’t picked out anything fancy, just a nice, light shirt and bright overalls. They would be useless if she was caught in the cold, and they were loud enough colors that it’d be harder to blend into a crowd, but… they were nice, and she felt comfortable.

“When my clothes are washed,” Violet asked quietly, looking out the car window as Kit drove down the street, “I can have my jacket back, right?”

“The leather one?” Kit asked, glancing over at her. “Yeah, of course. It… won’t match that outfit.”

Violet shrugged, smiling slightly. “Doesn’t matter.” Then, a bit more serious, she said, “Quigley gave it to me. Just a few days ago.”

She paused for quite some time, and then said quietly, “When we find him, can we take him out for new clothes, too? He’d love to do this, I’m sure.”

“Um, yes. Yeah.”

Violet looked over towards the woman. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. It’s just…” she smiled a little. “You remind me of Lem. When he behaved enough to go into town with us, he used to ask if we could take Beatrice somewhere nice. Until he found his own friends to hang out with, and then he and Ellington just let us do whatever we wanted.”

“So then Mother would hang out with you?”

“Either me and Jacques, or Lem and Ellington and their friends. We had to keep reminding her not to show off her fire too much, we weren’t supposed to show anyone. But when she was with us, we’d go… exploring. Around town.”

Violet reluctantly asked, “Were you guys in the… the tunnels?”

Kit’s eyes lit up. “You know the tunnels?”

“Yeah, that’s how I got out.” Violet said. “I- my ESP showed it to me, and I saw Mother’s map, and Quigley and I went through them for a bit til I got us out in some old barn…”

“We never went that far, really.” Kit said softly. “We actually found them after Lemony and Ellington ditched us one day. Beatrice stumbled onto this shed, broke in while we told her not to and that she’d get in _so_ much trouble, but then she found the tunnels, and… well, on our days off we’d sneak back down there. Jacques used his perception a bit and figured out they were probably made a long time before us, he thought they might be mostly natural but some people expanded them and put the shed over the entrance, though we couldn’t ever double-check without drawing suspicion to what we might be doing. Mostly we’d sit down with a map and let Jacques use his perception to tell us where each tunnel went, and Beatrice and I would map it out, but sometimes we’d explore a bit. Never too far, though. We didn’t want to get too far from home.” She smiled slightly. “It was a secret, just the three of us. We didn’t even tell Lem, or Blank Slate, or Mr Feint. It was like… our place.”

“Is that how you escaped? The tunnels?” Violet asked.

Kit gave her a quick look. “No. No, I… it’s not important.”

“But-”

“How… how long has it been since you’ve seen your siblings?”

Violet froze for a moment, shocked by the question. Then, holding back tears, she whispered, “Three-hundred and fifty-three days.” She shut her eyes, and then asked, “H-how long has it been since you’ve seen yours?”

She felt bad the second she asked that, but after a minute, Kit said, “Jacques died about eleven years ago. Lemony died about fifteen, with Ellington and Mr Feint.”

Violet turned to her, confused, as Kit stopped the car at a red light. “What?”

“There was an accident at the Lab.” Kit said quietly. “I was testing upstairs, so I didn’t see any of it, but-”

“They didn’t die.” Violet said.

“Of course they did. There was an accident, and they all-”

“We found an article about it.” Violet insisted. “It said Armstrong Feint died, but Lemony and Ellington went missing.”

Kit shook her head. “No. No, they died. I know that. They all died together, they were messing with the wrong machine and it blew up.”

“Did you see the bodies?”

“It would’ve been too upsetting, they-”

“The article was _very_ clear.” Violet said, not mentioning that it said Lemony and Ellington were suspects in Feint’s murder; Kit might not take that news especially well right now. “It said they went on the run-”

 _“Well, it was wrong!”_ Kit snapped, suddenly shouting, and Violet jumped, one hand flying to her bag on the floor and the other pressing over her ear. She was frozen like that for a good few seconds, waiting to see it Kit would either escalate the argument or try to calm down.

Instead, Kit just fell silent, and kept driving.

There was a minute, in which Violet calmed herself, slowly dropping her bag and clasping her hands together, trying to stop herself from shaking. It wasn’t a bit deal, Kit just got frustrated…

After a moment, Violet said, “Sorry.”

“You just… shouldn’t believe everything you read.”

“How…” Violet glanced towards her, her heart sinking slightly, “How do you know-”  

“I _just…_ do.” Kit stated.

They drove in silence for a long while after that.


	25. Klaus Powers Up

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

_Klaus Powers Up_

 

“We’re not gonna all fit in the bed.” Duncan stated carefully.

“We can fit.” Isadora said quietly, hugging a pillow and staring at the door. Fiona, Carmelita and Sunny had been gone for a while now, and they’d decided that they should probably get some sleep at some point. Klaus was sitting on the edge of the bed, still a bit unnerved at the suggestion he sleep while his sister was so far away from him, and he kept fiddling with his jacket and barely looking at them.

“Well,” Duncan said, “We might’ve been able to fit last night, but Quigley doesn’t want to be touched, and the bed’s not big enough for us all to be spread out enough.”

“I’m sorry.” Quigley said quietly.

“We’re not blaming you for anything.” Duncan assured him. “We didn’t know last night, but now we do.” He glanced at Isadora, and then continued, “I can get some blankets and sleep on the floor. Klaus, you should stay with us, too. We can call Violet before we go to sleep, too.”

“Sunny’ll miss it.” Klaus said quietly.

“I’m sure she’ll understand.” Duncan said. “Isadora, you stay with Quigley, just close enough that he won’t feel alone.”

“Really, if- if it’s going to be a problem…” Quigley began, running his hand over the ribbon on his wrist.

“Absolutely not.” Duncan said. “Just let me know if you need me for anything, Klaus and I’ll only be a few feet away.” Hesitantly, he said, “Do you want to call, too?”

Quigley shrugged, gripping onto the ribbon and shifting it slightly around his wrist.

“We’ll just go get the radio, then.” Duncan said, smiling a little. “Be right back.”

He jumped to his feet, grabbing Klaus’s hand and leading him out the door, glancing back just once to wave to his siblings.

As they wandered down the hall, looking for the living room, where Klaus had left his bag, Duncan said, “Are you doing okay?”

“Not really.”

“I get that.” Duncan nodded. “But Sunny’ll be fine. Even if she wasn’t stronger than all of us, she has Fiona and Carmelita with her.”

“I’d rather she be here.”

Duncan nodded as they reached the living room, and Klaus ran to grab the radio. He watched, bouncing his leg slightly, and as Klaus turned back around, Duncan said, “I-I’m sorry.”

Klaus stared at him, confused. “What?”

“I… I never thought that one of our siblings would come back without the other, and… this must suck for you, and now Sunny-”

“That’s not your fault.” Klaus said quickly, running back over to his friend and grabbing his hand. “It’s not your fault! You have your brother back, don’t worry about me.”

“I…” Duncan glanced at the radio. “I just-”

Klaus shook his head. “Don’t worry about me. Let me deal with this.”

“I don’t want you to feel like…”

“Look. Let’s just… call Violet, okay? Then tomorrow, when the girls get back, we can figure out what we’re going to do next.” Klaus looked a bit nervous. “Or maybe they’ll be back before we go to sleep. Hopefully.”

“Hopefully.” Duncan repeated.

 

When the door closed behind them, Isadora turned towards her brother. “Quigley, are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“I mean… I’m not about to run a marathon anytime soon.” Quigley said quietly. “But I’m okay.”

“You’re _not._ You…” Isadora shut her eyes. “Look, sometimes my empathy acts up when I don’t want it to, and… you’re not feeling good.”

“I’m fine.” Quigley said again, his voice emotionless. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not. Something’s wrong. Please,” Isadora moved, sitting in front of Quigley so he could see her face. “Please, you can tell me. Talk to me. I don’t… I don’t want you to feel like we won’t listen. That would suck. We don’t care about… listen, we just want you to be safe.”

“We can’t be safe. He’s going to be mad.” Quigley said.

“We’ll protect you. I promise, we won’t let the Shadow hurt you.” Isadora felt herself start to cry. “Quigley, I… I won’t…”

Quigley stared at her for a moment, blank expression on his face as he asked, “Isadora?”

“I…” Isadora hugged herself, her voice breaking as she finally said, “Quigley, I thought you were _dead._ I thought… I… Quigley, I thought I was never going to see you again, that we’d failed and you were _dead_ and it was our f-fucking fault, and- and all this shit happened to you, and we… I can’t do that again. I’m not losing you again, and I just want- I just want you to be okay.”

She wanted to hug him so badly, but instead she just curled up a bit more on the edge of the bed, and she continued, “I thought… I… I’m not letting anything happen to you. Okay? I’m not. You’re going to be okay, but you need to talk to me, and Duncan, so we can fix it.”

Quigley looked over at her, a spark of recognition in his eyes. “Fix it?”

Isadora nodded, forcing a smile. “Yeah.”

“I… I think…” Quigley paused, twisting the ribbon again. “Isadora?”

“Yeah?”

Quigley bit his lip. “A-about the last year…”

“Yeah?”

He paused. “I don’t-”

The door opened again, and Duncan and Klaus came in, the latter already fiddling with the radio. Quigley jumped and curled up, and Isadora got to her feet, watching as Duncan and Klaus sat on the edge of the bed, turning the radio on.

“Do you want us to talk?” Isadora asked hesitantly.

Klaus bit his lip. “Only if you want to.”

Quigley looked at the walkie-talkie curiously as Klaus finally got it on. He glanced at the clock, and then said, “It’s Day Three-hundred and fifty-three. Uh, Sunny’s not here today, she’s… she’s fine, she’s just out with Fiona. They’re investigating some stuff. We think… we think something’s up with the Upside Down. They’re just making sure it’s nothing serious. They’ll be back soon. They have to…”  He shut his eyes. “It’s been a few hours. We were hoping they’d be back but- it’s a big town, if they actually find tunnels they might want to-”

Quigley suddenly sat up, his eyes lighting for a moment. He tugged on the edge of his ribbon, his face falling a bit, and in a flash, he reached forwards and grabbed the radio.

“Hey!” Klaus yelled, shocked.

“Quigley!” Isadora shouted.

“What the hell?” Duncan added.

“Sorry!” he said, his face going a bit red. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what…”

“It’s okay.” Klaus said shakily, holding out his hand. “Just give it back.”

“Yeah, yeah, I-” Quigley started to hand it back, but then froze, staring down at it.

“Quigley?” Isadora asked.

“Do you want to say something?” Duncan asked. “Did… did we even tell you what we’re doing?”

“We’re trying to talk to my sister.” Klaus said quickly. “Can I have the radio back, I-”

“Violet.” Quigley said.

“Yeah, my sister, Violet.” Klaus said, getting a bit concerned. “Please, give me back the radio.”

Quigley looked down at the walkie-talkie and then, to their shock, started to cry.

“Quigley!” Isadora said quickly.

“What’s wrong?” Duncan added.

Quigley backed up slightly, lifting the radio and saying into it, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m _sorry!”_

Klaus looked like someone had just punched him. He was frozen for a moment, while Isadora said, “What? Quigley, what are you sorry for?”

 _“I’m sorry!”_ Quigley just said, starting to shake as he sobbed. “I’m _sorry!”_

“Give me that!” Klaus grabbed the radio back, saying, “Violet, I’ll call you back tomorrow!” He turned the walkie-talkie off, tossed it to Duncan, and then turned back to Quigley, saying, “What did you do?”

Quigley shook his head, hugging himself tightly and rocking back-and-forth, still sobbing.

“What did you _do?”_

“Leave him alone!” Isadora said quickly. “He’s sick, he-”

Klaus glanced from the radio to the ribbon on Quigley’s wrist, looking both terrified and furious. “Did you do something to her? What did you _do?”_

“I don’t _know!”_ Quigley finally screamed. “I don’t _know_ what I did! I-I think I- I think I left- left _something_ or _someone,_ I don’t… I was supposed to- to go to- I don’t _know!_ ”

“What did you _do_ _to her_?”

_“I don’t know!”_

“What do you _mean_ , you _don’t know?”_ Klaus shouted. “What-”

“I don’t _remember!”_ Quigley yelled. “I don’t- I- I…”

He trailed off, suddenly staring into space, and then he shut his eyes tight, clenching his fists.

“Quigley?” Duncan asked.

“What- what were you talking about?” Klaus asked, his voice shaking. “What happened to Violet?”

Quigley was silent, and then he said, his voice suddenly and shockingly emotionless, “It’s Fiona.”

“What?”

“Fiona. And Sunny.” he said, still blank. “They’re in trouble. I think they’re going to die.”

Klaus was frozen for an instant, and then his face went white, and he jumped forwards, grabbing Quigley’s hands. “What do you mean? What’s happening to them? What did you-”

“Get _off_ of him!” Isadora yelled, pushing him back.

“He just said they’re dying!” Klaus shouted, panic entering his voice. “He just said _they’re dying!”_

“Quigley, what do you mean?” Duncan asked, slowly shoving the radio into his own bag.

Quigley paused, and then grabbed his map off of a sidetable, as well as the closest colored pencil- a purple one. He hesitated, and then sketched an X over a spot.

“Here.” he said simply. “They’re here.”

Isadora grabbed the town map, laying it next to his. “That looks like… Loch Nora.”

“That’s where we used to live with Esme.” Duncan said quickly.

“Oh, God. You don’t think-” Isadora began.

“Esme can’t have found them. Why would they be there?”

“Maybe they got caught, and she’s holding them until-”

“It might not even be her house, it’s just the neighborhood-”

“You think it’s a coincidence?”

“You think she’s still _here?”_

“Quigley,” Klaus said, his voice shaking, “How do you know this?”

“I don’t know.” Quigley said. “I just… do.”

“And you’re sure this isn’t a trap?”

“No!” Quigley looked horrified. “I wouldn’t- not-”

“Then we need to find them.” Klaus said quickly. “We need to find them before…” Tears sprung to his eyes, and he gripped the map, staring down at it. “We need to _find them._ We have to…”

“Klaus. We’re going to get to them.” Duncan said quickly.

Klaus turned to him, and cried, “We can’t lose Fiona, Duncan. And… and I _can’t lose Sunny!”_

“I know.” Duncan said. “We won’t. We won’t lose them. But we’ll need to hurry; they took the car, so we’ll have to run, and God only knows how long that could take.”

“Quigley can’t run!” Isadora protested.

“I can make it.” Quigley said.

“Maybe we could steal a car in town.” Isadora said. “We all know how to break in.”

Quigley looked a bit startled. “I’d rather run.”

“It doesn’t matter what you’d rather do,” Klaus snapped, “We have to get to Sunny and Fiona before they _die!_ I’ll get us a car, we’re going now.”

“Are we sure it’s Esme’s place, though?” Isadora asked, glancing down at the map. “What if it’s not, and she sees us? And what happens when we get there? Do we just break into Esme’s house on the _off-chance_ they’re inside?”

“Do you want to stay _here?”_ Klaus glared at her.

“Of _course not!”_ Isadora snapped, and they could see a fear behind her eyes. “I don’t want to lose them, either! I- but we can’t just go barging in without a plan, that just gets us all caught!” She turned to Quigley. “How do you know they’re dying?”

“And what about Carmelita?” Duncan asked, suddenly remembering. “She’s with them.”

“I don’t see her.” Quigley said. “I just…” He shut his eyes. “I see… I see the tunnels, and they’re _there._ He can feel them. And he doesn’t want them to get out. They’re…”

He froze for another moment, and then he grabbed the pencil and drew another _X,_ slightly to the left of the first one.

“The _fuck_?” Klaus shouted.

“What does that mean?” Isadora asked.

“They moved.” he said quietly. “They’re here now.”

“How much are they moving?” Duncan asked.

“How are we supposed to find them if they’re moving?”

Quigley simply drew another _X._ “They’re running. They’re going fast. They won’t be moving long.”

“What’s that mean?” Klaus asked. “Please, Quigley, what’s the Monster doing to my baby sister?”

“I don’t _know,_ I just know he wants them _dead.”_

Klaus shut his eyes, gripping the map tighter. “We need some way to track them.”

“God, if only Sunny was here,” Duncan muttered, “She’s our human GPS.”

“Well, she’s _not here!”_ Klaus yelled, glaring at him, “Because everyone forgot she’s a _fucking baby,_ and now _she’s going to die!”_

Duncan sat up a bit straighter, matching his glare. “She is _not_ going to die, and getting mad at us isn’t going to fix the problem.”

Klaus took a deep breath, and then shakily said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I- I need to save her.”

“Quigley, do you have advanced ESP?” Isadora asked.

Quigley stared at her. “ESP?”

“Extrasensory Perception.” she said. “Can you, like, tell things? Could you track them?”

Quigley shook his head. “I can’t. I think that…” he trailed off again. “It sounds familiar, but I don’t think I…”

“Duncan?” Klaus asked. “Maybe you’ve got some of it?”

“I… I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on thoughts and stuff. I think if I had ESP like Sunny, it would’ve awakened by now.”

“What about that time you read the Monster’s mind?” Klaus asked. “When you started listing off words that appeared in your head? Maybe that was ESP.”

Duncan suddenly looked very pale, and he got very quiet. “I don’t know what that was. It… it sounded familiar, but I don’t know from where.”

“I’ve tried before.” Isadora admitted quietly. “To sense things like Sunny. But my powers seem to expand only to emotions.”

Klaus paused. “I could try. To sense them.”

“You think you could?”

“I’ve never…” Klaus quickly wiped his tears with his sleeve. “Never really tried, I always thought… I never was super into the whole ‘powers’ thing, but… Sunny has it, maybe I do, too. Maybe I can track them. Then we can run there, or drive, or whatever.”

“Do you think it’ll work?” Isadora asked, and they all jumped as Quigley suddenly drew another _X._

“It’s that or go running around town.” Klaus said, and he glanced down as his trembling hands. “I… I think I’m scared and pissed enough to make it work.”

“Well, then…” Duncan said quietly. “Try it. Isadora, let’s get all our supplies into one bag. Quigley, stay calm.”

Quigley just curiously watched as Klaus leaned back, clenching his fists; Sunny always did that, when she was focusing. He tried to remember what else she’d said she did when she was reaching into her perception; she tried to focus on her feelings, and the deep thoughts, whatever that meant. He was shit at focusing, but if it meant saving Sunny… he could do anything. He wasn’t about to lose her, too.

Quietly, he heard Quigley say, “Just focus. Breathe.”

He didn’t bother asking why he said that; instead, he just tried to focus, to lose himself, to channel all his emotions and fears onto activating this power he didn’t even know if he had. He recalled that Sunny sometimes hummed, to calm herself as she reached out.

He could do that. Yeah. He could do that.

He hummed quietly, trying to keep himself from crying, rocking slightly, doing his best to reach out.

_Blackbird singing in the dead of night…_

He could do this. He could do this. He could find his sister.

_Take these broken wings and learn to fly…_

He could find Sunny, he could help her. He just had to focus. If she could do it, he could, too.

_All your life…_

That was, if he had this power. He might not. This might be useless. He might be losing them precious time, what would happen if they got there too late and it was all his fault?

_You were only waiting for this moment to arise…_

He had to stop thinking like that. He had to stop thinking of everything that could go wrong, and focus on finding Sunny. He had to find Sunny. He couldn’t let anything happen to her or Fiona. He couldn’t lose anyone else.

_Blackbird singing in the dead of night…_

He thought of Sunny’s bright smiles and her excitement over the small things, like the worms she found on the sidewalk after it rained, and the cookbooks she stole from the Library. He thought of Fiona’s careful encouragement, her deep desire to help all of them, even if it put her in immediate danger. She could’ve died, when she came to get them. She could’ve been caught again, and she did all that for kids she barely remembered.

He couldn’t lose them. Not like he lost Violet.

_Take these sunken eyes and learn to see…_

He was terrified. He was terrified and nervous and anxious and he felt sick to his stomach. But he could use that. Use the fear, and anger, and frustration. He just needed to focus.

_All your life…_

He shut his eyes, still humming, and reached out.  

_You were only waiting for this moment to be free…_

And, suddenly, he felt calm.

He opened his eyes, staring at Quigley, who was watching him in an expressionless way that probably should have unnerved him.  

Quietly, Klaus said, “I know where to go.”

 

Fiona was running.

She had finally found an exit tunnel, though it was in a different place than they’d entered. She had her flashlight in one hand and using the other arm to hold Sunny as close to her as possible, trying as hard as she could to keep the toddler from seeing how terrified she was.

She’d lost track of how long they’d been in the tunnels, she just knew it was much longer than she would’ve preferred, and Carmelita was probably worried. Fuck, Klaus was going to kill her. Well, if nothing in _here_ killed her first. She’d tripped over more squirming roots than she could count- shit, those things seemed to be _alive_ \- and a few rooms back, something had sprayed into her face. Thank God, Sunny didn’t seem to breathe any of it in, but the poor girl was shivering against her.

Fiona stopped a moment, cursing, as the flashlight started ominously blinking. “No, no, no…” she muttered, and in a moment, it had gone out. “Fuck!”

“Fi?” Sunny asked, quivering.

“It’s alright, I’ll get the lighter.” Fiona said. She sat down a moment, shrugging her bag off of her shoulder, trying to dig through one-handed while still holding the toddler. Finally she found her lighter, and she flipped it open, watching the small flame dance to life. It wasn’t a lot, but…

Fiona narrowed her eyes, watching as the vines behind her, the ones that swarmed up the wall, started squirming, squealing. She raised the light, and the vines started to _move._

“He likes it cold.” she muttered. Then, she said, “Sunshine, I have an idea. I’m putting you down, I need you to rip up my jacket.”

“Wha?”  

“Just do it. I need fire.”

Sunny hesitantly nodded, and Fiona put her down and shrugged off her jacket. The toddler bit into it, ripping the fabric, Fiona took the useless flashlight and started wrapping the strips around the top. Once she was done, she put her bag back on and lit the fabric, watching a fire spread. She flinched, realizing metal probably wasn’t the best thing she could’ve wrapped the flame around, but she had gloves on, she’d survive a moment. She thrust the makeshift torch at the wall, smiling as the vines shrieked and moved faster than she’d have thought possible, revealing the wall behind it, covered in slime. She planted the torch into the ground and reached forwards, pushing; there was something behind the slime, not just a wall.

“Thank God!” she said. “Sunny, I need you to punch through this. We can probably crawl through, there’s an exit behind it, we… Sunny?”

Sunny was still sitting on the ground, breathing raggedly. Fiona dropped to her knees, saying, “Sunshine? Oh, God, what’s wrong?”

“Zeezee.” Sunny sighed. _“I’m tired, Fi. So tired.”_

Fiona shut her eyes, feeling tears start to form. She reached forwards, and hugged the girl to her. “I’m sorry.” she whispered.

“Fi…”

“I’m so sorry.” Fiona cried, suddenly feeling herself start to tremble, suddenly realizing just how much shit they were in. “You’re just a toddler. I shouldn’t have… Klaus was right, you’re too young for this.”

“No…”

“You shouldn’t be here. I just… I forgot you’re not like us. I should’ve been more responsible, and now you’re trapped here.”

“No, no…”

“I should’ve protected you… I should’ve-”

Sunny screamed, and Fiona realized why quite quickly as she felt something heavy and slimy wrap around her foot. She gasped, looking down to see vines slithering around her. She stood up, trying to move, only for the roots to press down against her feet. She shut her eyes, letting out a stream of curses, as the vines rose up her legs, trying to force her back down.

“Fi!”

Fiona suddenly threw Sunny, watching her land several feet away. Sunny screamed, and Fiona shouted, “Run! Go! Get out!”

“No!” Sunny shrieked, and she raced back as Fiona fell, landing hard on her back and feeling the vines rush, spreading over her. She shut her eyes, trying to think of a poison that would kill these things, but if she used acid, she’d just knock herself out, and then Sunny would be alone with her unconscious body.

_Sunny…_

Sunny let out a scream, and grabbed a vine, pulling back. To Fiona’s surprise, the thing split in half, its screech growing louder. And to Fiona’s horror, Sunny then stumbled back, her eyes fluttering as she struggled to stay awake.

“Sunny, go, just _run…”_ she pleaded.

“No! No-”

A vine suddenly wrapped around Sunny’s leg, and Fiona felt as if everything was falling apart.


	26. The Tunnel Rescue ends Badly

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

_The Tunnel Rescue ends Badly_

 

“Are you sure you know where we’re going?” Duncan asked.

“Absolutely.” Klaus said calmly. “So long as Isadora doesn’t crash the car.”

They had run into town, where Klaus found them a car and used his telekinesis to unlock it. Quigley seemed even less comfortable than Duncan, and he wouldn’t let go of his brother’s arm from the backseat as Isadora drove through a field; they’d abandoned the roads, at Klaus’s instructions, several miles ago.

“I’m not going to crash, unless you direct us into a tree.” Isadora said sharply.

“Please don’t!” Duncan yelled.

“Trust me.” Klaus said. “I know what I’m doing.”

That surprised him, really. He rarely knew what he was doing, but he just felt… calm. Certain. He knew where they were supposed to be, at any rate. Was this why Sunny used her powers so much? Did she like feeling so in control?

“Left.” he said suddenly, and Isadora swerved the car.

In the backseat, Quigley shut his eyes tight and grabbed tighter onto his brother, burying his head in his shoulder.

“Quigley, it’s okay.” Duncan said breathlessly. “Isa knows what she’s doing.”

“I can’t do this.” Quigley whispered. “I can’t do this. I need to get out of this car. I need to get out… I can get us out-”  

“No, no, stay.” Duncan said. “Stay with us. Stay here.”

“I have to get _out…”_

“We’re almost there.” Klaus stated. “Isadora, slow down. There’s a field here, and…” he shut his eyes, that calming sense filling him again, as something was brought to his attention. “We’re going to need to catch Carmelita.”

 _“What?”_ Isadora said.

“Just slow down, and… stop.”

Isadora parked the car, and instantly, Duncan leapt for the door, throwing it open. Quigley rushed out, shaking and on the edge of tears, taking deep breaths of the cool autumn air as Isadora and Klaus also jumped out of the car. Klaus glanced around, observing the field, before moving towards some trees to their left, calling, “Be right back!”

Isadora raced after him, while Duncan watched Quigley. “Hey! What did you mean, we’re going to need to-”

“I just know.” Klaus said.

Isadora flinched. “Like… like how Quigley just ‘knows’ stuff?”

“No. Like Sunny.”

“It could be the same thing.”

“It’s not.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“For fuck’s sake-”

“Stop.”

Klaus stopped under a tree, reaching up to touch it.  Then, he called, “Carmelita! Carmelita, it’s us!”

There was silence for a moment, before they heard, distantly, “Thank _God_ , come kill this thing!”

“Oh _no_.” Isadora said, as she and Klaus took off in the direction of the voice.

They only had to run a few feet, though, before they saw what Carmelita had been hiding from.

A small Monster turned towards them, having previously been staring up a tree. Klaus and Isadora watched for a moment, and then Klaus threw out his hand, and the Monster catapulted backwards, hitting another tree with enough force to cause a loud _crack_ to sound. It landed on the ground, but Klaus didn’t give it time to escape this time; he cocked his head, the calm state suddenly breaking and replacing itself with a sharp anger.

“Holy _shit!”_ Isadora shouted as the tree the Monster had hit suddenly snapped in half, landing on top of it.

Klaus quickly wiped his nose on his sleeve, watching for a moment. The Monster let out a screech, but seemed to be trapped for the moment, though he doubted it would hold for long. He called, “Carmelita, come down!”

They glanced up, seeing Carmelita perched on a very high branch. It was a bit difficult to see her completely through the leaves, but there was no mistaking the bright red hair and rainbow clothes. She started scampering down the branches, calling, “What are you _doing_ here?”

“Quigley said Fiona and Sunny are in trouble.” Isadora said. “And Klaus thinks they’re here.”

 _“What?”_ Carmelita glanced down, shocked, and promptly slipped.

Isadora gasped, and Klaus threw out a hand, managing to channel his powers into stopping her fall. She hovered in the air for a moment, looking terrified, and then she called, “Put me down, please! This is weird!”

“Okay! Okay!” Klaus said quickly, lowering her carefully to the ground.

Once she landed, she took a moment to shake off the surprise, and then she said, “What’s this about Fiona and Sunny? The Monster can’t have gotten to them, it was chasing me.”

“How’d that happen?” Isadora asked, eyeing the creature.

“Thing tried to get into the tunnels and decided to chase me instead.” Carmelita shrugged. “By the way, you know that shed we used to sleep in? Turns out there’s tunnels underneath it. Fucking wild.”

“There’s tunnels,” Isadora repeated, “Underneath the Shed.”

“Yeah, and Fiona and Sunny went in. I was supposed to guard but, you know, Monster.” Carmelita said. “Chased me into the woods behind the house, I ended up here and figured it couldn’t climb trees. But I… I closed the trapdoor, I don’t think- if there was more than one monster, it wouldn’t have gotten to them, would it? I closed the door-”

“You think there’s more than one?” Isadora asked, startled by the thought.

“Why wouldn’t there be? If it’s a baby, there could be more than one.”

“Fiona and Sunny are here.” Klaus stated again. “And we should get back to Duncan and Quigley, if they get nervous-”

“You brought _Quigley?”_

“What do we do with… that?” Isadora asked, glancing towards the Monster.

They turned, watching it struggle to lift the tree. Klaus slowly approached it, staring down. He clenched his fists slightly; he wasn’t feeling calm anymore, and now, looking down at this thing, all he could think of was how it was trying to kill them all.

It was trying to kill _Sunny._

Klaus stared at it some more, and felt more pissed than he had in a long time. He flicked his hand, and they heard a snap, and the Monster stopped moving.

There was a deadly silence for a moment, as Klaus backed up, wiping his nose again and trying to steady his breathing.

Then, quietly, Isadora said, “Klaus, did you just…”

“Break its neck?” Carmelita finished.

Klaus shut his eyes, feeling like his heart was about to burst out of his chest. Then, he said, hoping they didn’t notice how much his voice was shaking, “Remember what Fiona said? No morals. Especially if our siblings are in danger.”

After a pause, Carmelita said, “I mean… it was a monster.”

They heard Duncan’s voice, then, calling from the edge of the woods. “Isadora? Klaus?”

“We’re coming!” Isadora called. “Come on, let’s… find Fiona and Sunny.”

“Should we just leave it?” Carmelita asked.

“Who gives a fuck?”

 

They ran out of the trees, and Isadora immediately rushed to Quigley, who was hugging himself on the ground, shaking a little. “Did something happen?”

“He just-” Duncan began.

“It’s _nothing.”_ Quigley insisted, rubbing his neck slightly. “Just felt a bit bad a minute ago. I’ll survive. We need to… Fiona and Sunny are hurt, they’re-”

“They’re _what?”_ Klaus asked, running up to stand in front of Quigley. “What do you mean?”

“He’s pissed.” Quigley said quietly. “And I think… I think he knows where they are, we…”

“Are they here?” Isadora asked.

He nodded hesitantly, then started rocking back-and-forth.

“I don’t see a trapdoor.” Carmelita muttered, glancing around the field, “Or a shed-”

“When did _you_ get here?” Duncan asked, startled to see her.

“Long story involving one of those fucking baby monsters.” Carmelita said, waving a hand. “More importantly, if Fiona and Sunny are here-”

“They’ll be in the tunnels already.” Isadora said.

“Meaning that they’ll be underneath us.” Duncan finished.

“If there’s no entrance, though-” Carmelita began.

“I’ll find one.” Klaus said.

Isadora and Duncan looked at each other, a little concerned, but they nodded. Klaus shut his eyes, grabbing his jacket and humming again.

“What is he-” Carmelita began, but Isadora just slapped a hand over her mouth.

“Shut up, he needs to focus.” she muttered.

After a moment, Klaus opened his eyes, looking calm again. Then, he said, “Stand back.”

Duncan ran over to Quigley, holding his hand out to help him up. Hesitantly, Quigley took it, and they all backed up several feet.

“What exactly are you doing?” Carmelita called.

Klaus stared down at the ground, before throwing out his hands, and they watched as, just a few feet away from him, a hole opened up in the ground, dirt flying into the air and tossing itself away.  

“Holy _shit!”_ Duncan said, and Carmelita said something along the lines of, “Fuck!”

After a second, Klaus stepped back, sitting on the grass and wiping his nose with his sleeve. Duncan ran over first, saying, “Are you okay?”

Klaus nodded quickly. “Just… need to sit down a second.”

“Are you too tired to-”

“No! I’m going in for my sister!”

Duncan nodded, watching as the others crowded around. “Okay. Okay, does anyone have rope?” They shook their heads. “Klaus, think you’ll be able to levitate us in and out?”

“Of course.”

“Someone should stay out here.” Isadora said. “In case there _is_ more than one Monster, or if something happens- besides, Quigley probably shouldn’t go down there.”

“I’ll be fine.” Quigley said, though he also sat down, looking very sick.

“I’ll go down.” Carmelita said quickly.

“I’ll go, too. I can track them.” Klaus said.

Duncan hesitated, then said, “Isa, you should stay with Quigley. If he gets too panicked, you might be able to help. I’ll go, though; they’re going to need all the help they can get.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Carmelita said.

Isadora hesitantly nodded, then said, “Just… be careful. If you die, I swear to God-”

“I’m not dying, and nobody else is, either.” Duncan said. He gave Isadora a quick hug, saying, “You be careful, too.”

Isadora pulled away, then turned to Klaus and Carmelita. “If you two get hurt-”

“We’ll be back soon.” Klaus said. “And we’ll bring Fiona and Sunny.”

He gave Isadora and Quigley a quick look, and then he looked down into the hole and jumped.

 

Duncan started shaking the second they got into the tunnels. He grabbed Klaus’s hand quickly, saying, “Klaus, we-”

“It looks awful.” Klaus nodded, looking around at the slime and vines covering the walls.

“It looks like the Other Place.” Duncan shook his head, as Carmelita dropped down. “When I saw flashes, from Quigley, it- God, Klaus, we need to get them out of here, we need to get _out-_ ”

“We’ll get out, once we find Fiona and Sunny.” Klaus said quickly. He shut his eyes, and then said, “We’re going left.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Carmelita asked.

“Yes.” Klaus nodded. “Grab Duncan’s hand, we can’t get split up.”

“God, _fine.”_ Carmelita huffed, taking Duncan’s other hand. “Let’s just go, okay? Who’s got the flashlight?”

“That’d be you.”

“Oh, yeah.” Carmelita used her free hand to reach into her front bag pocket, pulling out a flashlight. “Let’s get a move on, then.”

 

Isadora sat next to Quigley, constantly switching between watching him and the hole in the ground. She bounced her leg slightly, before saying, “You think they’ll take much longer?”

“No.” he said. “They’ll be out soon.”

“Did… _he_ tell you that?”

“No.” he admitted. “I don’t think so. But… I think they’re getting close.”

“Can you sense that with our connection?”

Quigley glanced at her, confused. “Our what?”

“Oh.” her eyes widened. “You don’t know-”

Quigley squinted his eyes, looking over her shoulder, before interrupting, “Is that a car?”

“Yeah, we drove here-”

“Not _our_ car!”

“What’s-” Isadora turned, freezing as she saw a van driving up, parking just beside their own stolen car.

She recognized that van, and she recognized the other vans that pulled up behind it, all labelled _Hawkins Power & Light. _

“No.” she whispered.

“Isadora?”

“No…”

The doors opened, and she saw men rushing out, some in Hazmat suits, some in security uniforms. Isadora leapt to her feet, saying, “Quigley, we have to go, _now.”_ Unfortunately, as she turned, she saw more cars on their other side. They were being surrounded.

“Quigley, stick with me, I’ll get us out.” she said, quivering as she turned back to her brother. “I- _Quig!”_

Quigley recognized the uniforms, too, and now he was shaking uncontrollably, backing up slightly in the grass, looking like he wanted to disappear.

“Don’t teleport away!” Isadora said quickly. “Don’t leave!”

“I- I-” Quigley was starting to cry, shutting his eyes tight as if that would make the vans go away. “I-”

Isadora bent down, holding out her hand. “We have to run, _now!”_

If Quigley heard her, he didn’t show it; he had his eyes shut, and he started rocking a bit, sobbing hard.

Isadora glanced over her shoulder, seeing that the men were rushing forwards; they had to have seen them by now. She finally turned back to her brother and said, “I’m _sorry!”_

Then she dropped down, grabbing her brother and dragging him to his feet. Quigley started screaming, shutting his eyes and trying to back away, but Isadora managed to put her arm around him, starting to run him towards the woods. She darted her eyes around, trying to see if any soldiers were coming towards them, if she’d have to knock out anyone soon. She kept a tight hold on Quigley, who was still breaking down, still trying to get away from her, shaking and hitting and screaming. As she managed to get them past the cars, though, she realized something quickly.

Slowly, she turned, and saw that the men weren’t even going towards them. They were going towards the tunnel entrance.

_No._

“Quigley, I’m going to hide you, and then I have to go back!” Isadora said, running him into the trees. She pushed him down behind a bush, watching as he curled up, burying his head in his knees and letting out more screams, his hands flying to his ears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but you’re safe here so long as you stay _quiet-”_

He stopped shouting for a moment, and Isadora realized quickly that wasn’t a good thing, because he started gasping for air, as if he’d suddenly lost the ability to breathe.

She dropped to her knees, nervously glancing at the tunnel; people were going in, she needed to stop them, but Quigley was clearly in trouble… she could knock them all out in a moment. She just needed to calm down her brother first.

“Quigley, I’m going to calm you down-”

“Let go of me!” Quigley gasped out, tears still streaming down his face, ignoring the fact that nobody was touching him. “Let go, I don’t want to-”

“You’re not there, they’re not getting you again!” Isadora assured him, trying to keep from crying herself. “I just need you to keep quiet, and I’m going to calm you down, just stay-”

Quigley suddenly gasped, and dropped to the ground, shaking in an almost unreal way. Isadora let out a cry, confused and terrified. “What? Quigley, what’s going-”

She let out another scream, then, as she suddenly felt completely overheated. She stumbled backwards and tripped, landing hard on her back and throwing her hands over her ears. She could see people turning towards them, running towards them, but she couldn’t even sit up; she felt like the world was spinning around her.

And by the time she was present enough to realize what was going on, the first thing she noticed was that Quigley was still screaming an almost _unnatural_ scream.

_No…_

 

“Klaus?” Duncan called. “Are we almost there?”

Klaus turned them down another bend, stopping for a moment and focusing. “Almost.” he assured them. “We’re going to need to fight, I think.”

“Oh, fucking wonderful!” Carmelita said. “So you brought the two who’d be least useful to you in a fight.”

“I didn’t have many options, did I?”

“Fiona!” Duncan called. “Fiona! Sunny!”

“Sunny!” Klaus yelled. “Fiona!”

And just as they were about to turn another bend, they heard a familiar, high-pitched call.

_“Kla!”_

Klaus took off, dragging Duncan and Carmelita behind him, following the noise. “Sunny!”

They found themselves in a long stretch of tunnel, and as Carmelita shined her light in, they quickly saw Sunny, pushed against the wall, looking only a few seconds away from passing out, dried blood under her nose and tears still on her cheeks. Squirming vines were pushing up around her, pressing her into the wall and almost completely covering her.

 _“Sunny!”_ Klaus screamed, rushing towards his sister. He stopped in a few feet, though, when he also saw a mound of vines on the floor, just behind Sunny, Fiona’s hand emerging from the pile, barely moving. He glanced between them, and then called, “Duncan, Carmelita, get Fiona! I’ll get Sunny!”

“What do we do?” Carmelita asked, even as she and Duncan ran towards Fiona, starting to push the roots aside, ignoring the high screeching that began as they did.

Klaus made his way over to Sunny, shutting his eyes and focusing hard. Then he flicked his hand, and one of the vines around his sister split in half, shrieking and retracting into the wall.

“Okay, we do something like that, got it!” Duncan said.  

“I’ve got a knife, would that help?” Carmelita asked, shoving her hand into her bag’s pocket.

“Fuck _yeah_ it would help, dipshit!”

Carmelita pulled out a pocketknife and started cutting at a root, scrunching up her face in disgust as it squirmed and squealed. “It’s slimy!”

“Yeah, and Fiona’s dying, hurry up! I’ll try moving more of- Fiona!”

Klaus glanced to the side as another vine around Sunny burst; he could now see Fiona’s face, as Duncan pushed more roots aside and Carmelita finally managed to cut one; she was struggling to breathe, trying to say something.

He turned back to Sunny, and finally, as he broke another vine, she managed to move her hands, pushing herself free. She lost her balance, falling onto him, and he instantly threw his arms around her and lifted her up, retreating from the wall as fast as possible and hugging her close. “Sunny!” he said, before turning to Fiona, flicking his hand and watching another vine burst.

“Fire!” Fiona suddenly gasped out. _“Fire!”_

“What?” Carmelita jumped. “What fire?”

“She means light it on fire!” Duncan said quickly. “You got a lighter?”

“No, but I got matches.”

_“Use those, then!”_

Klaus watched as Carmelita dug in her bag, stepping forwards slightly, still hugging his sister tight. “Sunny, are you okay?” he asked quietly, as Duncan took Carmelita’s knife and started cutting.

She didn’t respond; instead, she started to sob, shaking slightly as she gripped onto him.

“I’m sorry.” Klaus said quietly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m here. I’m here.”

Carmelita finally got out a box of matches, pulling one out and striking it. As the small flame flickered, she held it towards the vines, watching as they shrieked and retreated. After a moment, Fiona managed to get up, gasping and pulling herself to her feet, kicking aside any remaining roots. Duncan rushed over, shutting the pocketknife and shoving it into his pocket, grabbing onto Fiona as Carmelita jumped to her feet, dropping the match to the ground; it didn’t stay lit long, unfortunately.

“Are you okay?” Duncan asked.

Klaus ran over, too, looking her over; she was covered in slime and some kind of mold, and her glasses looked completely smudged. She squinted, trying to see enough. “Where’s Sunny?”

“She’s here.” Klaus said, hugging his sister tighter. “She’s safe. Are you okay?”

Fiona nodded slightly, hugging herself, and Carmelita and Duncan looked like they were preparing to catch her should she topple. Carmelita glanced down, and then let out a shriek, seeing a vine creeping closer to them.

“Shit!” Duncan yelled.

“Go, go, run!” Fiona said.

They turned, and shrieked again, upon seeing that someone in a hazmat suit was right behind them.

“What the-” they heard his voice, sounding surprised, and then he just said, “Get out! Clear the area!”

“Who the _fuck-”_ Klaus began, as Sunny let out a scream-cry, but Carmelita just pushed him forwards.

“Doesn’t matter, he has a great idea, let’s fuck off!” she yelled, grabbing Fiona’s arm and dragging her along.

They’d only gone a few feet, though, before Klaus glanced back, seeing the man turn on some machine he had in his hands, which he recognized as a flamethrower quite quickly, due to the fact fire emerged from it, hitting the vines.

For a moment, Klaus just felt a normal, fleeting fear upon seeing the flames, even as he instinctively stopped running, his breath catching in his throat. Sunny screamed louder, pressing herself against his chest. Duncan stopped, instantly rushing towards his friend and grabbing his arm, about to push him behind him, and Fiona and Carmelita slowed as they realized what was going on.

And then, as the fire kept burning, Klaus suddenly felt _horrible._

He dropped to the ground, clutching Sunny and screaming. He felt hot, too hot, like he was the one on fire instead of the vines. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Duncan fall beside him, throwing his hands over his ears and screaming, and Fiona dropped, too. Carmelita stepped back, shouting, “What’s wrong? What’s happening, what-”

Suddenly, there were more adults there, in hazmat suits, like the man setting the tunnel alight. Klaus found himself forced to his feet, even as he shook and screamed and gripped harder onto Sunny, who was still sobbing. He heard Fiona let out a gasp, and as he managed to turn towards her with tear-filled eyes, he saw that one of these men had stuck something in her arm, like a syringe of something. It was a bit hard to process what was happening, but he did hear Carmelita let out a panicked shriek, and he managed to spot her running to the man grabbing Fiona, grabbing onto his arm and kicking at him, shouting, “Let her go! Get _away_ from us!”  

_Oh no._

Klaus spotted Duncan, who’d stopped screaming and now was just crying, hugging himself and trying to shake away the man holding him. Klaus tried to stumble towards him, only to find himself held back.

“It’s okay,” he heard a voice say, as he also felt a sharp pain in his arm, “We’re not going to hurt you, we just need to get you out of here.”

Klaus felt a burst of panic, and he gripped harder onto Sunny, shutting his eyes and trying to focus enough to throw these soldiers off of his friends, off of him.

But he suddenly felt very, very tired.

Fiona suddenly collapsed again, having gone unconscious, and he heard Duncan and Carmelita scream out. He held Sunny closer, turning to look at Duncan, who met his terrified eyes, and then reached up to wipe a bleeding nose.

Klaus’s last thought, before passing out, was something along the lines of, _We’re so fucked._

 

Isadora was screaming, holding onto her brother and refusing to let go.

Men kept trying to pull her off of him, but she refused to let go of her shaking brother. “Piss off!” she screamed, pushing herself farther back, waving her hand and watching a man in a uniform pass out beside her. “Fuck _off!”_

“Ma’am, we’re trying to help-”  

“I know who you are!” Isadora shrieked. “I know who you are and you’re never touching him again-”

_“Isa!”_

Isadora turned, startled, to see Duncan running towards her, sliding to a stop beside the men.

“Duncan!” she shouted, clutching Quigley tighter. “Duncan, we-”

“Isadora,” Duncan said, stepping forwards a little, “You need to let them take him.”

Isadora froze, shock coursing through her. “What?”

“Something is wrong with him,” Duncan said, his voice shaking, “And they’re the only ones who can help.”

“They’re not going to _help him!”_

“They are.”

Duncan dropped in front of her, and, in the dim light, Isadora saw his nose bleeding.

“You…” She glanced from Duncan to the men surrounding them; at the very least, they weren’t attacking her while her guard was down.

“I can hear their thoughts, yeah.” he said quietly. “And I still don’t know if we can trust them. But they’re not going to hurt him, and he could die if he doesn't go with them.”  

Isadora hesitated, glancing down at Quigley, who was still shaking uncontrollably, starting to sob.

Then, she said, “Only if we go, too.”

Duncan turned towards the uniformed men, and then quietly said, “I think we don’t have a choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UNFORTUNATE NOTE 
> 
> I will not be able to update tomorrow; I have a recital prep that will last all afternoon, meaning I won't be able to get to my computer to update. Sorry! :(


	27. Violet goes into the Void

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: Panic attack happens pretty early on, and it's not handled especially well by the characters, neither of whom are super educated on what's going on.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN**

_Violet goes into the Void_

 

Violet pulled out the radio, setting it onto the table and placing her hands on it. “7:10, Eastern Standard Time,” she explained, as Kit watched with a cup of coffee, “Every day.”

“You can channel their voices?” Kit asked.

Violet nodded. “I just have to focus a _lot._ I never know how far away they are, but sometimes it’s more difficult than usual, so I usually assume that means we’re farther apart. But I’m not entirely sure, we’d have to test.”

“Jacques could reach other countries if he focused.” Kit stated quietly. “But you haven’t had much formal training on your perception-”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t exactly call the Lab ‘formal training.’” Violet said sharply. “Now, be quiet a second, I’m going to call.”

She shut her eyes, keeping her hands on the radio and sitting up a bit straighter. It took a minute for anything to happen, and she was starting to get worried that she wasn’t connecting correctly. When Klaus’s voice finally started speaking, she felt relieved for a moment, and then very concerned, though she wasn’t quite sure why.

 _“It’s Day Three-hundred and fifty-three.”_ he voice said. _“Uh, Sunny’s not here today, she’s… she’s fine, she’s just out with Fiona. They’re investigating some stuff.”_

Violet shut her eyes a bit tighter, and she heard Kit whisper something to herself.

_“We think… we think something’s up with the Upside Down. They’re just making sure it’s nothing serious. They’ll be back soon. They have to…”_

Okay, now she was feeling very nervous. Klaus did not sound comfortable at _all._

_“It’s been a few hours. We were hoping they’d be back but- it’s a big town, if they actually find tunnels they might want to-”_

His voice got cut off, and for a moment, Violet wondered if she’d been too scared to keep focus. She figured that he probably just lost his grip on the _call_ button, or he stopped for a moment to collect himself. Hell, maybe Fiona and Sunny got back already, and they were about to step in. She’d love to hear what they’d found.

Then she felt her stomach drop, as a familiar voice came over the radio.

 _“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m_ sorry!”

“Quigley!” Violet gasped, and she jumped, and the radio snapped off.

She stared at the radio for a moment, before muttering, “No, no, no…” She put her hands back, struggling to focus, but that was a bit difficult, because her mind was racing a mile a minute. “No, no, no…”

“Violet? Are you okay?”

“I just need to get him back. I just…” She pressed her hands onto the radio, squinting her eyes shut, desperately trying to keep herself focused. “I just… I… _Quigley, please come back!”_

“Violet.” Kit put a hand over hers. “You’re not going to be able to focus like this, just breathe-”

“No, no, I can- I can-”

“Just calm down, okay? Take a second.”

“I _heard him!_ He must have a radio, he must be trying to talk to me…” Violet said. “Is he with Klaus? No, no, he wouldn’t be, he can’t go anywhere if he doesn’t know where he’s going, and how would he find out where Klaus is and then go without me, wh- he must have a radio, he’s trying to talk to us, he’s trying to _talk to us_ and I _lost him-”_

“Violet, just calm down, I-”

Violet pulled her hand away from Kit’s, getting to her feet and clutching her stomach. She stumbled backwards, shutting her eyes to try and hold back tears.

“Violet?”

She wouldn’t be able to reach him, she wouldn’t be able to find him, he was in trouble and she just _fucked it up…_

“Violet!”

Violet sunk to the floor, struggling to breathe. She couldn’t breathe. _She couldn’t breathe._

“Violet, no, no, don’t do this-”

She didn’t want to be doing this, either; this hadn’t happened to her in a while, she’d been holding it together, but… no, no she’d fucked up, she’d fucked up, and she couldn’t _breathe,_ and her mind was racing, screaming everything that could have possibly happened to Quigley. Everything that could have happened because she wasn’t _there_ to protect him.

She barely processed Kit kneeling in front of her, saying, “Okay, listen, listen. Look at me, okay? Look at me.”

She couldn’t look at her, she could barely keep her eyes open; she felt dizzy, nauseous. She was gasping for air, tears streaming down her face as she tried to say something, _anything._

“Violet, look at me.”

She glanced up at Kit, shaking and still trying to form words.

“Look at me, you’re okay. You’re okay, this isn’t going to kill you.”

 _It is, it is, I’m going to_ die…

“Okay, listen, can you tell me what you see?”

_What?_

“Just look at me, tell me what you’re seeing.”

“Y-You- Kit, I-”

“Okay. Can you tell me what you’re hearing?”

“N- Kit, I’m- I can’t-”

“This will pass, this will pass, but tell me what you’re hearing.”

“You!”

“Anything else?”

She still was struggling to breathe; the world seemed to be spinning around her. “Kit, help me, I can’t- I can’t-”

“You’re okay. This will pass in a few minutes. Start telling me what you feel.”

“I _can’t breathe!”_ Violet wasn’t sure what Kit was doing, she just knew that something bad was happening to her. “I can’t breathe!”

“You’ll be fine. Focus on what you can feel.”

She couldn’t. She _couldn’t._

“Listen. Listen to me. Lem and Ellington used to do this, too. It’s going to pass. But it’ll help to focus on what’s going on right now.”

“I can’t-”

“You can. Tell me what you feel.”

Violet shut her eyes tight. “My-my shirt- and- I-”

“Listen.” Kit said. “Listen, I have an idea, on how we can find Quigley. But you’re going to need to calm down, alright?”

“I can’t-”

“This will pass, okay?”

She didn’t _care_ if this would pass, she just knew she was feeling horrible right now, and she couldn’t focus on anything else. “I can’t _breathe!”_

“Just… focus on anything. Tell me something.”

“What?”

“Anything. Tell me about Klaus.”

“I…” Violet blinked away tears, still struggling to breathe and talk. “I… he- he was tr-trying to ca-call, I probably- probably missed the end-”

“It’s okay, I’m sure he’ll understand. He’s been calling for how long?”

“Three- three-” Violet grasped onto the edge of her shirt. Then she raised a hand, signing _353_ _days._ (Her and Klaus, bored the Summer before Sunny was born, had learned some basic sign language.) 

It seemed to take Kit a second to understand, and then she said, “He’ll call tomorrow, then. You’ll hear him again.”

“I don’t _want-_ I want to _see him-_ Kit, I-”

“Just keep talking. Distract yourself.” 

“I _can’t!”_

Violet threw her hands over her ears as she screamed, and she distantly heard something topple over, which definitely did not help her mood. She buried her head in her knees, rocking slightly and continuing to sob and try to catch her breath.

She didn’t know how long she was against the wall, crying and shaking and desperately trying not to die. But even after she could breathe again, and the tears had dried on her cheeks, and the fear and panic started to wane, she was still feeling like complete shit.

When she looked up, she saw Kit was still sitting there, watching her. She stared  for a moment, and then wiped her eyes with her sleeve, saying hoarsely, “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Kit said quietly. “Just… those pass. After a few minutes. Yours was actually shorter than normal. Lem used to…” she trailed off, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter. Here, why don’t I make you some tea, and then we can talk about finding Quigley?”

Violet nodded, and she took Kit’s hand, shakily getting to her feet. Kit sat her down at the table, and brought her a blanket from the other room, and started the teapot, and Violet hugged herself for a while. Slowly, she pulled the ribbon off of her wrist, fiddling with it for a little bit. She glanced down at her arm, her breath catching a little as she spotted the _007._ She turned her eyes to the ribbon instead, wrapping it over her fingers and then unwrapping it on repeat. Then, quietly, she moved it to her neck, trying in vain to tie her hair back; it was too short, the ribbon just slipped through. Goddamnit…  why did she cut it, she was _such_ an idiot…

Kit walked back, a cup of tea in her hands. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

Kit flinched again. “Did Beatrice swear that much around you?”

“Father did, actually.” Violet said, a small smile flitting onto her face. “And then he’d apologize and ask us not to repeat those words around Mother. Then, a few years ago, Klaus dropped a book onto his foot and yelled ‘fuck’, really loud, while we were all in the room. And we thought Mother was going to be mad, but she just… she just laughed, and said, ‘Klaus Baudelaire, I’ve been censoring myself around you for ten years, the least you could do is wait til you’re sixteen to say _that_ word.’” Her face fell slightly, and she curled up a bit more in the chair. “Guess we didn’t follow that rule, did we? There were… a lot of rules we probably should have followed.”

“Violet…”

“When…” Violet stared at the wall. “When did your parents die?”

Kit sighed. “I was three. I don’t remember much of it, and we went to live with Mr Feint immediately after. Apparently there was some kind of accident at my father’s work, and my mother happened to be visiting him that day, we were staying with some relatives at a… a farm.” She shut her eyes. “That’s all I remember, really. I was in a field, fascinated by the cows. First time I’d seen them in real life. Actually, I… I don’t think I’ve seen any since, not up close. Isn’t that strange?”

Violet shrugged. “Never been on a farm. Think Mother said she used to live in the country, but she never took us there.” She sighed, and then tied her ribbon back around her wrist. “It doesn’t matter. You… you said you had an idea. On how to find Quigley.”

“Yes, but it might be… it might not work.”

“I don’t care.”

Kit sighed. “Jacques… when he went into the Void, I told you he could see people, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well… he told us that… that he could tell where they were. If he focused enough.”

Violet stared at her. “You think that… I could do that?”

“If you could enter the Void, I see no reason why-”

“How do I do it?”

Kit paused. “That’s where it gets complicated. Jacques needed the Sensory Deprivation Tank for the first few years, and even afterwards he had to focus incredibly hard. As you may have noticed, I do not have a Sensory Deprivation Tank. I guess I could ask Dewey how to build one, but I’m not entirely sure how I would explain why it’s needed.”

“I could try to focus hard enough.” Violet said. “I’ve gotten good at it, so that I don’t break the radio. Although… guess I fucked that up today, didn’t I?”

“Well… I could try turning on the static of the television. Jacques did that once, when Lemony made us stay at his friend’s house to escape the rain and he got bored enough to try and track Ellington and Beatrice at some coffee shop. He said the static helped. You might want a blindfold, too. Anything else that might help?”

Violet looked sadly down at her ribbon. “No.”

Then an idea came to her. As Kit stood up to get to the TV, Violet took the ribbon, pulling it and judging how long it was. Then, carefully, she tied it around her head, like a headband. It was just long enough to make a small bow, and she smiled to herself as she dropped her hands, shakily getting to her feet. It’d take a while to learn how to do it quickly, but she could tie her hair like that for the time being. It was probably stupid, but it felt… good. It actually felt _better_ than she’d have expected, to still be able to tie her ribbon somewhere.

She moved into the living room, sitting on the floor as the TV static blared. Violet flinched slightly; that sound was a bit loud for her, but she could get used to it. She crossed her legs, bouncing slightly, as Kit came back in with a strip of fabric.

“This might work as a blindfold.” she said. “Block out your sight.” 

She tied it around Violet’s head, and Violet flinched slightly, but didn’t complain. If this was what it took to find Quigley, she could deal. (And, after she found Quigley, she could probably track down other people…)

Violet sat in silence for a while, struggling to focus, but it was a bit hard, with the loud static, and the sense that Kit was watching her, and the remnants of panic sparking in her chest.

After what felt like an hour, Violet said, “This isn’t going to work, is it? I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“What do you do,” Kit asked, “When you sense things?”

“Just… reach out.”

“Do that, but… think of, instead of your senses coming to you, you’re going to them.”

Violet squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her fists. She sat for a bit, attempting, and when she let out a frustrated groan, Kit said, “We can try one more thing.”

“What?”

“I could… try to give you the illusion of sensory deprivation. It’s harder to make non-visual illusions, but if I could black out your audio for a bit-”

“Do it.” Violet said. “That might actually help.”

She waited, and then suddenly, she didn’t hear anything. Or feel anything; she couldn’t even feel the fabric of her shirt sleeve, which she’d been fiddling with a little. If Kit hadn’t warned her this was about to happen, it would’ve definitely freaked her the hell out. Instead, Violet just shut her eyes, focusing harder, reaching out.

And then she felt herself slip away.

 

Violet opened her eyes into the blackness.

It definitely _felt_ like Quigley’s Void. But this time, she was there for more than a few seconds. “I did it.” Violet muttered, glancing around; she didn’t have the blindfold on here, it seemed, but it was a bit hard to tell, due to the blackness.

“Okay.” she heard Kit’s voice, from somewhere distant. “Now, focus on your friend. Once you see him, go towards him, and find out all you can. Use your perception.”

Violet muttered, “Alright,” and thought hard, shutting her eyes focusing entirely on Quigley.

When she opened them again, she did see a figure in the distance.

She walked towards it, flinching as she heard what sounded like water underneath her feet. She didn’t feel water, though, just… sensed it. She kept moving, glancing down to see ripples forming as she walked. She didn’t remember _that_ from the place they’d gone while teleporting. Though, again, she’d only been there a few seconds at a time.

As she got closer, she felt her spirits rise when she did recognize Quigley, looking like he was sitting down. He was still in the same clothes he’d been in when Violet last saw him, though he looked a bit paler- that might be the lack of lighting around her, but it still made her worry slightly.

Then she got close enough to start picking up on his expression, and the first thing she noticed was that he looked fucking terrified.

“I can’t do this.” he muttered, his voice almost echoey.  “I can’t do this.”

“Quigley.” Violet said, trying to call out. Maybe he’d be able to hear her. “Quigley, it’s me. It’s Violet. I’m here. I’m going to find you.”

“I can’t _do this!”_ He looked up, then, as if listening to someone. Then, he said, “I know, I know, we have to… but, please, can’t we just run?” He shut his eyes, then moved, as if he was leaning against something. “Okay. Okay, I… just drive slow, okay?”

Violet shut her eyes. She just had to expand her perception, try to figure out where he was. He was clearly with someone, that was good. Maybe he _was_ with Klaus. But… no, no, how the hell would he have _found_ him?

She could sense his fear first, a deep fear. Then a sense of confusion; like he should know something, but didn’t.

_Come on, tell me where you are…_

Then she sensed it.

She opened her eyes, staring at the image of Quigley.

_No._

He flinched back, as if startled by something. She reached forwards, as if to touch him, only to watch, in horror, as her hand passed through him, and he started turning to smoke before her eyes.

_No, no, no…_

 

Violet gasped, sitting up straighter. She could suddenly hear the static of the TV, pounding into her ears. She reached up, ripping off the blindfold, realizing quickly that her nose was bleeding pretty badly. She staggered to her feet, gasping and shaking her head.

_No, no, he can’t be, he’s not…_

“Violet?” Kit looked up from the couch, where she’d apparently been jotting something down in a notebook while waiting for her. “What happened? Did you find anything?”

“Don’t tell her.”

Violet jumped, turning to see an image of Klaus, leaning against the wall. She froze, staring at him, as he watched Kit.

 _I didn’t want you to come,_ she thought.

“You’ve been using so much perception lately, I was bound to appear.” Klaus’s image said, shrugging. “Though, right now, the real me is going through the woods. He’ll be fine, for now.”

_But…_

“Violet?” Kit stood up, following her gaze and obviously seeing nothing. “Are you okay?”

“Don’t tell her where he is.” Klaus said again.

_He can’t be there._

“I don’t lie to you.” Klaus said. “He’s there. But you can’t tell her.”

_Why not?_

“Violet!” Kit said, and Violet finally turned back to her, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Violet, what happened?”

Violet thought very hard. She took her ribbon out of her hair, tying it back around her wrist, as she finally muttered, “Couldn’t get close enough to find out where he was. But he’s safe.”

Kit watched her a moment, and then walked over, giving her a quick hug. “We can try again later, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Violet nodded, shutting her eyes.

 

Violet sat in her bed, as Kit asked, “Are you sure you didn’t want me to get you pajamas?”

“It’s just extra clothes to carry.”

“Violet, we talked about this-”

“I know, I know.” Violet curled up slightly. She glanced over at Kit, and asked, “How… how did you get out of the Lab, again?”

Kit didn’t meet her eye. “It’s a… long story. You don’t want-”

“I do!”

“How about I tell you tomorrow? You should get some rest.”

Violet paused, glancing away. Then, quietly, she asked a different question.

“When did… when did Olaf get to the Lab?”

“Um, I believe I was… sixteen.” Kit said. “His parents hid him for a while, but- well, when- when they died, he came to us. He started _much_ later than the rest of us, so he was rebellious for a long time, but once his Clairvoyance kicked in, he started getting more and more interested in what the doctors were doing.” Violet gripped the blanket, paling slightly. “Honestly, Lem got worse than him at points, he just kept fighting the tests for _years_ , but Olaf eventually just wanted to-”  

“Did Mother ever do anything to him?”

Kit stared at her, a brief horror flashing in her eyes. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just… my perception- it was probably nothing.”

Kit was silent for a moment, and then said, “Get some sleep, okay? We’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

Violet nodded, and as Kit left, she curled up under the blanket, running her hand over her ribbon. Why didn’t Kit want to tell her about her escape? Why would her ESP-Klaus tell her not to trust Kit?

And why the _hell_ was Quigley back in Hawkins?


	28. The Gang gets a tour of the Lab

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**

_The Gang gets a tour of the Lab_

 

When Fiona woke up, she kept her eyes shut for a moment, trying to recall what exactly had happened right before she fell asleep. She remembered being cold, and scared, and upset, and something was pressing against her… and then there was fire, and- the other kids. They were all with her, when there was fire, and a sudden pain, and she’d gotten…

She’d gotten… _knocked out._

“One, two, three, four.”

She sat up, not wanting to open her eyes, not wanting to confirm where she was.

“One, two, three, four.”  

That was Duncan’s voice. Duncan was trying to calm someone down, probably-

“Everything’s going to be okay.” Wait, that was Klaus. Klaus was trying to calm someone down, too.

“We’re going to be fine.” Isadora’s voice sounded, too. “We’re going to be _fine.”_

Fiona flung her eyes open, realizing quickly she didn’t have her glasses. But she didn’t need them to recognize the white color of the walls, and the cold feel of the air, and the faint panic in everyone’s voice, as well as the quiet sobs from beside her.

“No…” she muttered.

“Fiona!” she heard someone jump up from a few feet away, and after a second, she felt her glasses pressed into her hand. She hastily put them on, starting to stand before she could even see, feeling a hand on her arm. When she was finally standing, she glanced around, hurriedly making a note of everything she could. Klaus was beside her, looking concerned, dressed in hospital scrubs- shit, all of them but Isadora were… though these was better than a hospital gown. Across the room, Quigley was in some kind of bed, Sunny beside him, the two of them sleeping. And near the bed, the other triplets were standing beside a table, where Carmelita was sitting-

Oh. Oh shit.

Carmelita looked _awful._ Her hair had come undone from her braid, and her face was red. She was crying slightly, rocking and hugging herself and keeping her eyes shut tight. Duncan had a hand on her leg, and said again, as he glanced over carefully at Fiona, “Okay, Mel, just… one, two, three, four.”

Fiona felt her stomach drop as she processed their room. It looked much more like a normal hospital than she remembered, but there was no mistaking where they were.

“We’re getting out of here.” Fiona said, trying to move forwards and almost falling. Klaus caught her, helping her stand back up.

“You’re still wearing off the sedative. Just hold on a second.” Klaus said.

“We’re getting-”

“Just stay calm. Just stay calm, okay?”

Fiona’s eyes darted around the room. There was a door, but it looked locked. That wouldn’t be a problem, she could get them out, she’d probably be awake enough to poison people in a moment…

“One, two, three, four…”

Fiona glanced back at Carmelita, who was still rocking and crying. “How-how long have we been here?” she asked quietly.

“A few hours, I think.” Klaus said. “Duncan and Isadora are the only ones who’ve stayed awake.”

“Few hours seems about right.” Isadora said. She gave Carmelita a quick look, before moving closer to Fiona, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Klaus woke up only a little before you, Sunny’s still knocked out-”

“They tranqed Sunny?”

“No! No.” Klaus said, looking towards his sister. “Apparently when I passed out, she tried to fistfight the soldiers but then knocked herself out. Exhaustion. They think she’ll be fine.”

“They?” Fiona asked.

Klaus and Isadora shared a look. “You want to tell her?” he said, a bit bitterly.

“Fuck no.”

“You were the one still awake.”

“Fine.” Isadora sighed. “Well… the Lab’s not… super evil right now, I don’t think.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly how Klaus and Carmelita reacted.” Isadora muttered. She glanced over her shoulder, seeing Duncan still trying to calm the girl down. “They had to knock her out, she was straight-up trying to kill everyone.”

“So am I, once we get out of here.”

“We can’t just kill everyone, unfortunately.” Isadora said, crossing her arms. “They’re the only ones helping Quigley.”

Fiona paused, glancing towards the sleeping triplet. “What’s wrong with him?”

“When… when they set the tunnels on fire,” Isadora said quietly, “He… he went nuts. Freaked out, started… it looked like something was seriously wrong with him. They had to rush him here- had to keep me from killing them all first, which was a bit hard, but once Duncan figured out they wanted to help-”

“They _don’t.”_ Fiona said bitterly. “They just don’t want another pet project to get away from them.”

“They saved his fucking life.” Isadora said. “If they hadn’t given him immediate medical attention- they’re getting his results now, which is why they’re not here. And also, they felt that…”

“They felt that they probably shouldn’t have anyone here when you and Klaus woke up.” Duncan finished, looking over as Carmelita’s breathing slowed. “Due to the fact you would probably just kill them instantly.”

“They guessed right on that.” Fiona said sharply.

“They’ll come in once I’ve calmed you all down.” Isadora said. “And we need them, at least now. To take care of Quigley.”

“If it helps,” Duncan said, standing up a bit straighter and putting an arm comfortingly around Carmelita, “I read their minds. I… I don’t know everything, really, but I think…  I think… they won’t-”

“Tell her what they told us.” Isadora said, walking over towards Quigley and sitting beside him.

“They’re not the same people who kidnapped all of us.” Duncan explained quietly, holding Carmelita a bit closer. “They’re basically all new employees and shit. Their job is to clean up the last Lab’s mess, basically. Keep the Upside Down at bay, make sure nobody finds… finds out what they did to- to us.”

“So they’re coverup people.”

“Mainly scientists.” Duncan said quietly. “Mostly they’re here for the Gate, and to keep an eye out for… us. Make sure we don’t cause any trouble. Guess they finally found us, then.”

“Technically, they found the tunnels.” Isadora called. “We just happened to be there.”

“They might not be new people,” Fiona said, “They might just be lying to you. Carmelita and I would be the only ones who could recognize them, and if we didn’t wake up until now-”

“Yeah. You’re awake.” Duncan said. “And _with us._ If they were going to continue testing, why would they leave us together? Would just cause more problems for them, wouldn’t it?”

Fiona bit her lip, breathing slowly as she cautiously glanced around again. “And… they’re taking care of Quigley?”

“Yeah.” Duncan said. “And they’re not lying about that, at least.”

“They cleaned us up, made sure we didn’t get fucked up by the Upside Down.” Isadora added.

“And they’re going to tell us more.” Duncan said. _“If_ we don’t kill them.”

Fiona paused, glancing around; this place still felt wrong, and she really felt as if she should be running, trying to get out of here as soon as possible.

“Klaus?” she asked quietly. “What do you think?”

Klaus bit his lip, quietly glancing over at her, and then looking to Sunny, still sleeping. Then, he said, “We can’t trust them. They… even if it’s not the same people, they’re working with them. They’re the ones who- who took Violet. But… Quigley needs medical attention. And we can’t exactly go to an actual hospital can we? So… I- I think that we should stay for now. But as soon as Quigley can move, we run.”

Isadora hesitantly nodded agreement, and Duncan hastily copied her. Carmelita finally opened her eyes, staring down at her lap.

“You…” she said quietly, her voice hoarse. “You won’t let them keep us here, right?”

Her question was directed towards all of them, but it hit Fiona hardest. She hugged herself, and said, “I’m going to protect you. None of them are going to hurt you again. I… I should’ve… I should’ve done _better…”_

“Fiona?”

Fiona glanced towards Sunny again, trying to hold back tears. She couldn’t show weakness, not in this _place._ Not here.

“I…” she turned towards Klaus. “You were right. You were right, and I shouldn’t have- I shouldn’t have brought her, I’m _sorry…”_

“Fiona…” Klaus began.

“I should’ve told you we were going to Hawkins.” she added, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “I should’ve done better. I- I can’t-”

Klaus ran forwards, pulling her into a hug. Fiona froze for a moment, shocked, and then she slowly put her arms around him, shutting her eyes tight and leaning down to press her face into his shoulder. She heard Duncan run up, and soon he was hugging her, too. Fiona realized she was crying after a moment, and tried her best to hide it, but she could tell they’d all noticed. Goddamnit, no, she was supposed to be stronger than this…

“You’re okay, Fi.” Klaus said quietly. “You’re gonna be okay. We’re all getting out of here.”

Duncan moved an arm, holding it out, and then Carmelita joined the hug, too. Isadora ran over, and then Fiona was crying harder, trying desperately to keep it together, keep it _together,_ they were in the Lion’s den and she had to stay _strong…_

“We love you, okay?” Klaus said quietly. “We love you.”

Okay, Klaus, that was _not_ helping.

They heard a tap at the door, and instantly jumped, breaking apart. Fiona wiped her eyes on her sleeve and pushed Carmelita and Duncan behind her.

“Okay.” Isadora held her hands out, as if to steady them. “Our game plan is ‘play nice until we don’t need these fucks anymore.’ We got that?”

“Play nice.” Fiona repeated, sighing.

“Play nice.” Klaus nodded.

Carmelita didn’t say anything, instead grabbing Duncan’s hand and using her other hand to tug on a strand of hair.

Isadora moved over towards Quigley, and then called, “Alright, we’re safe a moment!”

The door opened, and some men in familiar lab coats entered. Fiona instantly stiffened, positioning herself even more in front of Duncan and Carmelita, the latter of whom gripped tighter onto the boy beside her.

“You must be Fiona.” one of the doctors- the guy who must be in charge- said.

“Oh,” Fiona said, forcing a smirk onto her face, “We’re using names now?”

“Play nice.” Isadora muttered, giving her a look.

“This is nice.” Fiona said sharply. “Mean would be me turning their blood to Maitotoxin.”

Everyone looked a bit uncomfortable at that. “Well,” the doctor said, “We’ll just have to make sure we all stay ‘nice’, then.”

“Hmm. We better.” Fiona said.

“You…” Isadora said quietly. “You said you’d explain more. About what’s going on.”

“Yes.” the doctor said. “We’d like you to follow us for a moment-”

“We’re not leaving Quigley!” Duncan said quickly.

“We’re not going anywhere with you!” Carmelita shouted.

“You can tell us here.” Klaus said.

The doctors looked at each other, and then one said, “It’s a bit hard to explain. You’ll have to see it.”

Fiona took a deep breath, and then said, “I’ll go. The rest of you-”

“You’re not going alone.” Klaus said quickly. He paused, then said, “Duncan, Isadora, Carm, stay with Sunny and Quigley.”

“I’m staying with Fiona.” Carmelita said quickly.

“Okay.” Klaus said.

Fiona turned towards Duncan. “We _will_ come back. If we don’t, unleash hell.”

He and Isadora nodded solemnly, and one of the doctors said, “There’ll be no need for that.”

“You better hope.” Fiona said darkly. Slowly, Carmelita grabbed onto her arm instead of Duncan’s, blowing some hair out of her face. Klaus edged towards them, and as Duncan passed him to sit by his brother, Klaus put a hand on his arm.

“Watch Sunny?” he asked quietly.

Duncan nodded at him, smiling a little. “Of course.”

“If she wakes up, tell her I’ll be right back?”

“Of course.”

“And that everything’s going to be okay, and I love her, and-”

“Klaus. You can tell her yourself,” Duncan said carefully, “When you get back. Okay? Don’t be gone long.”

Klaus nodded, and Duncan reached down to squeeze his hand, smiling brightly, before moving to sit by Isadora.  

“Alright, then,” Fiona said, glaring at the scientists as they started to walk, “Start moving.”

 

As they walked down the hall, Fiona felt increasingly more nervous, and she could tell the others felt the same. Klaus looked pretty stiff, even as he hugged himself and alternated between biting his lip and humming. Carmelita kept gripping onto Fiona’s arm, occasionally just shutting her eyes when going down halls and relying on following the older girl’s steps.

The doctors weren’t saying much, instead just talking to themselves and occasionally glancing at the kids. Fiona clenched her fists, wondering how much poison she’d have to use. She could probably kill all these men without knocking herself out, but if they had to break out entirely, she might need Klaus’s telekinesis and Carmelita’s persuasion, or else she’d lose energy fast. They’d have to go back for the others, so she was memorizing all the turns they took, just in case.

Finally, they reached the elevator. Klaus tensed again, and Fiona asked, “What’s that for?”

“Well,” one scientist said, “Let’s begin by saying… well, mistakes have been made here.”

“Mistakes?” Fiona asked, aghast.

“Are we calling the kidnapping of kids a ‘mistake’ now?” Klaus asked darkly. “Is murder a ‘mistake’, too?”

The scientists looked uneasy. “Well, _abundant_ mistakes have been made. But, the people who made those mistakes- the ones responsible for what happened to you and your families- are gone. We’re what’s here now, and we are trying to make things… better.”

“What exactly are you trying to make better?” Fiona asked skeptically.

The doctor sighed, and pressed a button on the elevator. “Once again, this needs to be seen.”

When the doors opened, the scientists went in, and Klaus shot Fiona a questioning look. She glanced towards the doors, then reluctantly nodded, gripping harder onto Carmelita’s hand.

“Just play along.” she whispered. “I’ll protect you if things get bad.”

“We’ll protect each other.” Klaus replied.

They went into the elevator, sticking close to each other. As they rode down, Carmelita said, quietly, “I haven’t been in the elevator in a while.”

“Where does this go?” Klaus asked.

“The basement.” Carmelita replied, looking a bit upset. “Sensory Deprivation tank. Show-room. Fun shit like that.”

Fiona flinched. “Sensory Deprivation. They use that on you as a test or a punishment? I got both.”

“Punishment. Can’t exactly convince people to do what I tell them when I’m underwater.”  

Fiona was a bit pleased to see how uncomfortable all the scientists looked at this conversation. One of them said, “We’re not going _into_ the basement exactly, but very close.”

“One of the viewing rooms?” Fiona asked.

“Er, yes.”

The doors opened, and they were led down another hall and into a small room, which had two security guards positioned outside. Fiona scanned them briefly, wondering how much it would take to knock them out. As they entered, she also surveyed the room, seeing a lot of panels and microphones and buttons, as well as several scientists sitting around, taking notes or reading papers. They only occasionally glanced at the children, mostly with some form of curiosity or surprise, as if they didn’t know who these kids were or why they were here.

Some of the scientists that had been with the teens went to their own chairs, putting down more files or picking up papers. Klaus moved a bit closer to Fiona and Carmelita, starting to look nervous. Fiona gave the room another glance over, and saw a man still watching them, distracted from his papers. Then, after a moment, he stood up and left, barely giving them a glance as he passed. That was probably nothing, he was probably just on break, but still…

The doctor who’d spoken to them gestured to the wall, and the teens turned to spot a glass window. They approached it carefully, eyes wide, upon seeing what was in behind it.

In the room behind the glass, there was a large, gaping hole in the wall, covered in black webbing and red slime, somehow emitting a yellow light, surrounded by cracks and decay, surrounded by specks of dust floating in the air, which Fiona, with a jolt, realized looked just like the dust that was inside the tunnels.

“That’s the Gate.” Klaus said breathlessly. “Isn’t it?”

“Not exactly.” The scientist said. “That’s just part. It spreads beneath the Lab, into the tunnel system. It spreads beneath this window, too. It’s huge. This mistake is taking a while to fix.”

“It’s spreading.” Fiona repeated. “Into the underground tunnels.”

The scientist looked a bit displeased. “Yes. We’re afraid we didn’t realize those existed until recently, and once we found out… well, the other world already had a hold on them. We _can_ , however, stop the spreading temporarily.”

“With fire?” Klaus asked.

“Yes.” he said. “It doesn’t seem to like heat.”

Carmelita gripped tighter onto Fiona, and Klaus jumped slightly. “No, it doesn’t.” Fiona said, calmly hiding the brief spurt of panic she was feeling. “I used a lighter in the tunnels, they hated that.”

“They’re scared of fire, it seems.” the scientist then turned to Klaus. “You and your younger sister don’t have any control over flames, do you?”  

Klaus looked a bit surprised. “No. Why would we?”

“According to our files, that was your Mother’s… ability. That may have been a help.”

Klaus stared for a moment, before saying, bitterly, “Well. Sucks you all killed her then.”

The scientist gave him a look, and then Fiona asked, “Why are you showing us this?”

“This-” the scientist gestured to the wall, “Is why we’re not enemies. We’re all united in destroying this thing, aren’t we?”

“Why can’t you destroy it right now?” Carmelita asked. “Burn the shit out of it?”

“There are complications.” the man said shortly. “We should go now. See if your friend’s awake.”

“He’s not going to like being here.” Fiona warned, still shooting glares towards anyone who looked her way.

“We assumed as much.”

 

They quietly walked back down a hall, the kids following the one scientist and still sticking very close together. Then two doctors rounded the corner, chatting about something, and one of them tripped over himself, falling to the ground and spilling his papers.

The scientist in front of them sighed and moved forwards to help him pick up the  scattered papers, saying something about how they needed to be careful. Klaus moved slightly, as if to help, but Fiona just held her arm out, giving him a look.

“That’s a bit petty.” Klaus muttered.  

“Yeah.” Fiona said, though she smiled slightly. “But I think we should get to be petty, yeah?”

Klaus smiled back a bit, and Fiona heard Carmelita giggle slightly. Then the boy glanced behind them, and whispered, “Fi? Someone’s there?”

Fiona glanced around, seeing, at the end of the hall, a woman peering around the corner, watching them intently. She glanced at the men gathering papers, and then gestured for the kids to move closer.

The teens looked at each other, then Fiona nodded, and they quietly walked back, Carmelita straightening slightly but still refusing to release the older girl’s arm. They stopped a few feet from the woman, who, very quickly, “What are you doing here? How’d you get here? Are you alright? Where are the other kids?”

“Who are you?” Fiona asked back.

“A friend.”

“You work for _them_ , you’re not a friend.” Carmelita spat.

The woman sighed. “It’s not that simple, kids. Look…” she glanced over. “I don’t have much time. But I want you to know that as soon as I can, I’m getting you out, okay?”

“We can get out on our own.” Fiona said.

“Would you like to get out without a higher body count?”

“Not really.”

The woman sighed. “I understand that. But… don’t think everyone here is trapping you.”

“Is this a trap?” Klaus asked, startled.

“Don’t know. I’m not told much. And our distraction’s almost used up, so your little tour guide’s going to notice me if I don’t go. Where are you being kept?”

“We don’t have to-” Fiona began.

“Third floor.” Klaus said quickly. “Don’t know which room, but Quigley’s in a hospital bed. He’s sick.”

“Klaus!” Carmelita huffed.

“Hey.” Klaus said quickly. “Either she’s going to help us, or we just have one more person to poison later.”

The woman stared at him a moment, almost sadly.

Then, quietly, she said, “You look just like your Mother.”

She rushed off before any of them could say anything more.

“Oh.” Klaus whispered.

“Well.” Carmelita said. “That was weird as hell.”

 

“Sir, the boy’s awake.”

The teens perked up. They’d almost reached their original room, and Carmelita had considerably relaxed the closer they got to their friends. A doctor had just come up to them, and as they peered around her, they noticed the door to their room was slightly open. They glanced to each other as the scientist asked the woman something, and then quickly rushed forwards.

Klaus pushed the door open first, his face lighting up as he saw Sunny sitting at the edge of the bed. He ran over to her, and Sunny lifted her arms so he could pick her up. “Kla!”

Fiona and Carmelita ran in, too, moving a bit more slowly once they saw how  startled Quigley looked upon their entrance; he was only barely sitting up, and his triplets were on either side of the bed, warily eyeing the door.

“What happened?” Isadora asked, as Klaus backed up slightly, still hugging his sister.

“Well, he was right, it’s a bit hard to explain,” Fiona said, “But basically, Gate to the Upside Down’s still open, spreading, and they’d like us to not kill them before they can figure out how to close it.”

“Oh. Wonderful.” Duncan muttered.

“How are you doing?” Klaus asked carefully, glancing between Sunny and Quigley, the latter of whom looked a bit… confused.

“Bene!” Sunny said. _“I’m feeling okay!”_

“Quigley’s a bit… not feeling great.” Duncan said.

“I’m… okay.” Quigley said blankly.

“We’ve just been telling him nonstop for the last minute or so that everything’s okay and he’s not trapped here.” Duncan said.

“Oh! That reminds me,” Isadora said, reaching into her pocket, “We had to take this off, but you’ll probably want it back, right?”

She held out the ribbon, and Klaus stiffened slightly as Quigley turned to look at it.

Then, after a long pause, Quigley said, “What’s that?”

“The ribbon?” Isadora said, as everyone else suddenly felt very scared. “You know, it was in your bag. You haven’t let us touch it all day.”

Quigley stared at it as if he’d never seen it before, and carefully, he extended his hand and took it. He played with it for a moment, wrapping and unwrapping it around his fingers, and then he said, “Uh, yeah. Yeah.”

“Quigley?” Fiona asked carefully. “Are you okay?”

Quigley paused, glancing towards her in bewilderment, and then fixing his eyes on Carmelita. He stared for a long while, and then he whispered, “Uh, who’re you?”

Carmelita looked frozen for a moment, then she said, “Um, Carmelita Spats? We met yesterday, I’m _pretty_ hard to forget.”

“Oh.” Quigley said, glancing back down at the ribbon. “Sure.”

“Quigley?” Duncan said carefully. “Do you… not remember Carmelita?”

“Um…” Quigley said, glancing away, not wanting to respond.

But they all knew the answer, and they were starting to get very, very scared.


	29. Quigley Fucks Up Again

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE**

_Quigley Fucks Up Again_

 

Within the hour, a lot more doctors and scientists were in the room than would have the teens very comfortable. Duncan and Isadora sat on either side of their brother, quietly glaring at everyone. Fiona, Carmelita and Klaus stood next to each other at the end of his bed, with Klaus still holding Sunny, who was watching everything with a growing concern. Quigley had some kind of wires strapped to his head, which were connected to a heart monitor or something- none of the teens really paid much attention, instead just making sure nothing bad was going to happen to him, and nobody was going to force him to do anything bad.

One of the doctors shone a light into his eyes, and once she was done, she asked, “Alright, do you remember your name?”

Quigley stared at her, barely blinking, his face strangely expressionless. “Quigley.”

“Your full name?”

“Quigley Quagmire.”

“Do you know who any of these people are?”

Quigley calmly glanced around the scientists she gestured to, as Fiona stiffened, narrowing her eyes. “Doctors.” he finally said.

“Do you know where you are?”

Quigley narrowed his eyes. “Bad place.”

Isadora moved a bit closer to him, glaring at the doctor.

“Have you been here before?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Quigley shut his eyes. “I don’t remember. But it was bad.”

“Okay.” the doctor said. “Who are these two?”

Duncan and Isadora stiffened as Quigley glanced between them. They relaxed again as soon as he said, “Duncan and Isadora. My siblings.”

“That’s right-”

“Where are Mother and Father?”

Both triplets froze, staring at him.

“What?” Isadora’s voice broke slightly.

“Mother and Father.” Quigley said. “Shouldn’t they be here?”

The triplets looked to each other, unsure how to respond. Fortunately for them, the doctor continued then, by gesturing to the rest of the teens, and saying, “Do you remember them?”

Very slowly, Quigley turned towards them, his gaze still eerily blank. Klaus awkwardly waved, and Carmelita started playing with her hair again. Fiona and Sunny just stared back, both feeling very unnerved.

“It’s alright, take your time.” the doctor said.

Then, after a moment, Quigley pointed at the boy. “Klaus.” he glanced towards Fiona. “I… Friday?”

“Fiona, but that’s close enough.” Fiona said quietly.

Quigley looked at Carmelita. “I don’t know her.” She bit her lip and glanced away, and then he looked cautiously at Sunny. “I… don’t think I know her.”

“How do you know Klaus and Fiona?”

Quigley considered, and then ran a hand over the _010_ on his wrist. “I don’t know.”

“Do you…”  Fiona glanced towards Sunny. “Remember saving us last night? Me and Sunny?”

“Sunny…” Quigley said quietly, looking to the toddler. Then, he shook his head.

“Do you remember anything about last night?”

“I remember…” Quigley turned back to the doctor, staring hard. “They hurt me.”

Instantly, Fiona straightened up, pulling Carmelita closer to her, and Klaus held Sunny a bit tighter. Isadora stiffened, and Duncan asked, “Who hurt you?”

“Did they hurt you? The doctors?” Fiona asked.

“No.” Quigley said. “The soldiers.”

“The soldiers?” Klaus asked.

“What did they do to him?” Duncan asked.

“Quigley, nobody hurt you last night.” Isadora said quickly. “I was right here with you-”

“They shouldn’t have done that.” Quigley interrupted, his voice sounding dark. “It upset him.”

They all stiffened.

“Him?” the doctor asked.

“The Shadow.” he simply said.

“The Shadow?”

“It’s this… thing. In the Upside Down.” Isadora explained quickly. “I told you guys that last night, it’s the reason he’s… sick.”

“Right, right.” the doctor said. She glanced towards another scientist, nodding slightly, and then she said, “Okay, Quigley, we’re going to test something-”

Fiona instantly raised a hand, moving a bit closer to the bed. “You’re not _testing_ anything!”

“Relax.” the doctor said quickly. “We’re not testing anything _on_ him. We’re just going to try something, which _might_ explain a little of what’s going on.”

Fiona hesitantly moved back, crossing her arms, but continuing to glare daggers at any adults who looked at her. The door opened, and they watched as a small cart was rolled in, and it was eventually stopped across the room; however, they all could see, very clearly, the glass placed cage on top, holding what looked like a huge leech.

“The fuck is that?” Carmelita asked.

“Language.” a doctor said instantly.

“Fuck off, she can say whatever she wants.” Fiona said quickly.

Klaus realized what it was first, and he said, breathlessly, “That’s a vine.”

“Just a cutting.” a scientist said. He turned to Quigley, and then just said, “Okay, kid. Just let us know if you feel anything.”

Quigley had his eyes glued to the cage, but he nodded slightly.

The doctor pushing the cart then pulled out a small blowtorch, turning it on. There was a slight flash of fear behind Quigley’s eyes, but he kept staring anyway. Isadora reached towards him, inviting him to grab her hand, but he didn’t even acknowledge her.  The doctor slowly lowered the blowtorch towards the vine, and it let out a squeal and backed away slightly. Quigley stiffened a little, and the doctor asked, “Do you feel anything?”

“It… a little sting. In… in my chest.”

The blowtorch lowered more, the flame getting a bit bigger, and Quigley grabbed his chest, breathing hard.

“Quigley?” Isadora got to her feet.

The flame lowered more, and Quigley shut his eyes, saying, “It… _burns._ It burns-”

The vine let out another squeal, and Sunny threw her hands over her ears, and Quigley shut his eyes tight, starting to repeat, “It _burns, it burns, it burns-”_

For a moment, then, Fiona, Klaus, Duncan and Isadora also let out small cries, suddenly feeling jolts of heat, almost masked by the scream of the vine as it started to burn.

“That’s _enough!”_ Carmelita screamed, forcefully calling to the adults in the room. “That’s enough! Stop it!”

Quickly, the doctor retracted the flamethrower, and in the few moments it took the adults to realize what Carmelita had done to them, Duncan and Isadora had rushed towards Quigley, who suddenly looked incredibly weak and close to tears. The beeping heart monitor, which had sped up over the last minute, finally started calming.

They were all silent for a few moments, and then Duncan turned towards the doctors and said, in a surprisingly angry tone, “Tell us what’s wrong with him. _Now.”_

 

Isadora, Klaus and Sunny opted to stay with Quigley. Klaus was talking to his sister quietly, making sure she was _actually_ okay, and she kept hugging him and muttering something about how he should really stop worrying so much.

In the hall, one of the doctors finally gathered the teens to explain what was happening. Duncan leaned against the wall, staring at the ground, while Fiona and Carmelita glared daggers at the man talking to them.

“We believe it’s some sort of virus.” he said quietly. “Which is causing this… neurological disorder.”

“It’s not a disorder. He’s… connected to those tunnels.” Duncan said quietly. “And the Shadow.”

“Well,” the man said, “When a virus attaches itself to its host, it… duplicates. Spreads. Hijacks the host. A virus is alive, it has intelligence, that’s not so unusual. The unusual thing here is that the infected hosts are communicating.”

“They’re connecting.” Fiona murmured.  

“But,” the doctor said, as if trying to assure them, “Viruses can be cured. We’re working on. Figuring out how to take care of it.”

“And I’m assuming we’ll have to stay _here_ until that happens.” Fiona said bitterly.

“Well-”

“What _happens,”_ Duncan asked, looking up, “When he can’t remember _anything?_ When he’s _gone?”_

The doctor didn’t say anything.

Duncan looked away again, tears at the edge of his eyes. Slowly, Fiona put her arm around him, holding him a bit closer.

 

They sat in the hospital room for a long while, getting more nervous with every minute that passed. It had to have been several hours, and nobody had come to get them. They supposed that was good; they had enough time to quietly explain the Virus Theory to Isadora, Klaus and Sunny.

“Why don’t you want us to tell Quigley?” Isadora had asked quietly.

“He has enough to worry about without thinking of himself as sick.” Duncan had muttered, bouncing his leg slightly as they talked in the corner. “Besides, I’m… a bit concerned with… it doesn’t matter, has he… asked about Mother and Father again?”

Isadora had stared at the ground, then, so Duncan couldn’t tell she was about to cry. “Not yet. What… do we tell him?”

“No use making him… feel all of that again.” Duncan said quietly. “Just avoid it. Tell him they’re far away if you need to.”

“What if he finds out and gets mad?”

“Hopefully we’ll cure him before that could happen.”

“How… how could he just _forget-”_

“Did you give him back the ribbon?” Duncan had interrupted, in hopes of not having to think about their parents for a moment.

Isadora glanced over at their brother, who was just staring at the ceiling, but who did, indeed, have a ribbon tied around his wrist. “Yeah. He still doesn’t remember it, but… I think it’s helping. It better be.”

But after several hours of just sitting and waiting for news, they were all starting to get a little antsy- except Quigley, who just alternated between watching the ceiling and watching the wall.

Finally, after a moment, Isadora stood up, saying, “Fuck it!” and going for the door.

“Wait, wait-” Klaus began, about to stand up, starting to lift Sunny, too. Fiona pushed him back down, going after Isadora herself.

Isadora left the door swinging open, heading for a room across the hall that had two guards posted outside. She raced up, letting out a shout as they pushed her back. “Let me through! Let me _through!”_

“We can’t do that-”

“Let me _through!_ What are they talking about? Where are they? I thought you were trying to help-”

Fiona slowly pulled Isadora back, still glaring at the guards. “Isadora, wait a moment-”

“It’s been _hours!_ What could you _possibly_ be doing?”

Back in the hospital room, the teens watched through the open door. “Maybe I could convince them to let us through.” Carmelita said half-heartedly.

“What’s that going to solve?” Duncan asked quietly. “They won’t tell her anything if they don’t know anything.”

“They won’t tell us anything anyway.” Klaus said darkly. “Maybe I should try prodding them with questions about Violet. Wonder if she was ever _here_.”

“In this room? Not unless she was sick.” Carmelita huffed. “I could give you a tour later. Show you all the places they tortured me, place bets on where Violet was.”

“Vulnerasti.” Sunny said. _“Sounds festive.”_

They glanced at Quigley, who was staring out the door, watching the guards push Isadora away again, some dark look behind his eyes.

“Quigley?” Duncan said. He didn’t respond. “Quigley? Quigley!”

Quigley jumped, turning towards him. “Sorry.” he said quietly. “Zoned out.”

“You hurting again?” Duncan asked softly.

Quigley considered, looking back towards the door for a moment. Then, quietly,  he said, “I saw something.”

“What?”

“What did you see?” Klaus asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

Quigley leaned over, his face still blank, but his voice shaking, as if he was revealing a secret. “The Shadow. I think I know how to stop him.”

 

Quigley sat at a large table, a map of Hawkins spread out before him. He drew  the tunnel systeem over it in a dark red marker, and once he was done, he stepped back, staring for a moment.

“This is pointless.” a doctor said. Several scientists were watching him, with the other teens standing a bit closer, almost in case they might have to shield him.

“Shut up and let him focus.” Isadora said.

Quigley moved to the side of the map, and then pointed at one segment, where he’d drawn a large splotch; several lines connected to it, like a center. “There.” he said.

“What’s there?” Fiona asked cautiously.

Quigley shrugged, his voice still completely blank. “He won’t tell me. Won’t let me see. He’s hiding something. Doesn’t want me to see. I think it’s important.”

“Are you sure?” Isadora asked.

Quigley didn’t even look at her. “Sure.”

 

The doctors decided to check it out, but they once again left the kids in the hospital room.

“It’s like Rainbow Room 2.0.” Fiona groaned, glaring at the door. Sunny was sitting with her now, as Fiona was entertaining her by summoning liquid tabun and floating it around her in an orb.

“Except Sunny and I are here.” Carmelita said. “We’re Rainbow Room kids now.”

“And Violet’s not here.” Klaus added quietly.

“You think they found anything?” Duncan asked.

“Probably not yet.” Isadora shrugged. “Or we’d hear something.”

“They’re not going to tell us shit.” Fiona said, floating the poison in front of Sunny’s eyes again, watching as the toddler giggled.

“Maybe Mystery Girl will.” Carmelita said.

“Can we _not_ call her ‘Mystery Girl’?” Isadora asked.

“What else do ya wanna call her?”

“I don’t _know_.”

“What did she look like, again?” Duncan asked.

“Uh, blonde-ish.” Isadora shrugged. “Tall. Why does it matter?”

“Well, if she was friends with Klaus’s mother-”

“Yeah, that’s freaking me out a bit.” Klaus said. “Mother’s friend just _happened_ to show up- what if she’s lying? What if she’s part of the original lab, trying to kidnap us?”

“We can’t trust _anyone_ here.” Fiona reiterated. “Once Quigley’s okay, we’re getting the fuck out.”

“And then what?” Duncan asked. “Then _what_ do we do?”

Before Fiona had the chance to answer that, they heard Quigley whisper, “I remember something.”

They all jumped, turning towards him. He was sitting up slightly, but still staring at the ceiling. “What?” Duncan asked. “You remember something?”

“Something I forgot.” Quigley murmured. “I just… shut my eyes and saw…”

“Saw what?” Isadora prompted after a moment of silence.

Quigley slowly moved his hand, rubbing a finger over the ribbon on his wrist. “We’re sitting under a table. I’m crying, we… she hugged me, I- I think.”

Klaus and Sunny had identical stunned looks. “Who?” Klaus asked. “Who were you with?”

Quigley was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke next, his voice was cracked a little, as if he was about to cry, even though his face didn’t show that. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Klaus said.

“What?” Isadora also said, moving closer to him. “What do you mean?”

“What are you sorry for?” Duncan added, running towards his brother.  

Finally, Quigley started to cry, turning towards his siblings and shaking a little. “He- he made me do it. I’m sorry.”

“Who?” Isadora asked, and everyone was suddenly fixated entirely on Quigley.

“Who made you do what?” Duncan asked.

“I told you.” Quigley said, his voice suddenly angry. “They upset him. They shouldn’t have done that.” His voice broke again, and he cried, “They shouldn’t have _upset him.”_

They all slowly got to their feet, Fiona placing Sunny onto the ground.

“They sent all their soldiers.” Quigley cried. “And he’s taking them all out.”

A horrified Duncan whispered, “The spy.”

“What?” Klaus asked.

“The _spy!”_ Duncan suddenly took off, bolting out of the room.

Isadora froze, looking between him and Quigley. Klaus called, “I’ll go after him, stay here!”

He raced out of the room, seeing that Duncan was now struggling with the same guards Isadora had tried to fight barely a few hours before.

“It’s a trap!” he screamed. “It’s a _trap!_ We need to warn them, it’s a trap!”

“Duncan!” Klaus called. “Duncan, hold on-”

“It’s a _trap-”_

The guards pushed Duncan away again, and Klaus grabbed onto him, trying to hold him back. “Duncan, they won’t let you in-”

Duncan let out a scream, and Klaus instantly tensed up. He looked over at his friend, feeling very worried as he saw his nose start to bleed.

“Duncan!”

“Everything’s too loud.” Duncan muttered, and then he screamed, “It’s too _loud! It’s a trap-!”_

“Duncan, we- we need to-”

Duncan started sobbing. “Klaus, I’m hearing it again, I-” he shut his eyes, and then whispered, “Breathe. Fire. Thirteen-”

 

Quietly, Quigley whispered, “They’re almost here.”

“What?” Fiona asked, staring at him. “Who’s-”

The alarms suddenly sounded. Carmelita instantly threw her hands over her ears, as did Sunny. Isadora turned to Quigley. “What happened? What is going on?”

“He killed them.” he said, his voice dropping back into passivity. “And now he’s coming for you.”


	30. Violet is left alone for Too Long

**CHAPTER THIRTY**

_Violet is left alone for Too Long_

 

Violet sat up straight, gasping for air.

She’d been woken by a sharp pain in her stomach, and as she reached to grab her blanket, she felt it spread throughout her, almost like a _heat._ Like she was being electrocuted again, or like she was on _fire._

She could do nothing but gasp and grip the blanket around her for a moment, keeping her eyes shut and struggling not to scream.

When the pain stopped, she stayed still for a moment, breathing hard and trying to remain calm. Was that another… panic thing? It didn’t feel like the other times that had happened, and it had ended much faster. Besides, she’d been asleep, she couldn’t panic in her sleep, could she? Maybe it was a holdover from her dream… no, no, she’d been dreaming about running. Running from _something_ , and then falling…

Violet glanced at the clock. She’d only been asleep for a little bit, looked like. She shuddered slightly, hugging herself. She wondered if Kit was still awake; maybe she could help, maybe she could figure out what had happened to her, what was _wrong_ with her.

Violet slowly climbed out of bed, feeling a bit cold once she got out of the blanket. She ran a hand over her ribbon again, slowly moving back into the living room, squinting through the darkness so she could step carefully over piles of books; if Kit wasn’t awake, she didn’t want to be too loud.

She stopped outside the kitchen when she heard Kit’s voice on the phone again. Violet waited outside the doorway, not wanting to interrupt; hell, maybe she should just go back to bed, it was probably nothing, she was probably just overreacting to a bad scare…  

“I know, I know, I’ll come in for work, don’t worry. I just have to… make sure some things are taken care of. They won’t care about it, I had to call off sick all week; been feeling like absolute _shit_ for some reason.”

Violet felt a flash of fear; Kit was leaving her? She tried to remind herself it would be for less than a day, but still, she’d rather _not_ be alone with her thoughts for several hours. Then, as Kit listened to whoever was on the other end, Violet felt a small sense of dread. Why would another Librarian call Kit about work this late at night?

“Listen. It’s nothing like that.” Kit said quickly. “I’m still- yes. Yes, don’t worry.”

Violet bit her lip, starting to back away. It was probably just one of Kit’s friends. She needed to go back to sleep. She shouldn’t be bothering her.

As she turned to go, she heard Kit ask another quiet question. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

Violet froze.

“You didn’t hear anything about where the kid might be? I think… just trust me, okay? I’m just asking you to keep this a secret for a little longer.”

Oh, okay, it was just one of the friends she asked to look out for Quigley. Okay, that was probably not too bad…

“I swear, it probably won’t be… look, it doesn’t matter. What… what about the other thing?”

Violet edged a bit towards the doorway, feeling horrible as she did.

“I know, I thi- I can _handle it,_ it’s been fifteen years! Just… send whatever you can get to me, okay? I just… just hurry it up, okay? I’ll see you soon.”

Violet backed away, not very certain she wanted to bother Kit at the moment, or that she really wanted to listen to her conversation. She stepped over the books, making her way back to her room and closing the door.

 

She woke up again late in the morning, and she sat in bed for a little bit, trying to figure out what _exactly_ she wanted to ask Kit. She hugged her pillow and hid herself under the blankets for warmth, trying to piece her thoughts together. It’d be better to figure out the exact words now, so she could get it all out before Kit could change the subject.

It turned out that was all for nothing, though, because when Violet finally wandered into the kitchen, all she found was her leather jacket folded over a chair, and on the table was a plate of waffles, a cup of tea, and a note.

_Violet,_

_I unfortunately had to go into work today. Can’t call in another sick day without losing my job. I will be back this afternoon, there is food in the fridge, feel free to eat whatever you want. Please do not leave the house. We can talk when I get back._

_Kit._

Violet sighed, crumpling the note in her hands. Of fucking _course_ she had to work today. Of course. Well, she could get some stuff done while Kit was gone. Maybe practice her questions, practice her insistence that they be answered. She could do this. She could find something to occupy her time.

She threw on her jacket and started by going around the apartment, checking the windows and doors and making sure they were locked, as well as making sure the vents were securely in place and there weren’t any other entrances, muttering everything she wanted to know under her breath as she did. Then she checked over the items in her bag again, eventually pulling out the radio and sitting on the bed with it for a while, hugging it slightly and staring at the ceiling. She wondered if she should try to search for Quigley on it, but… no, no, she’d just check in at 7:10. He’d probably think to call then, or soon after it, in order to catch her attention. He’d sounded so _scared_ when she heard him last…

Eventually she put the radio back, and then wandered into Kit’s living room, picking a book at random and flopping onto the couch. She struggled through the first chapter, mostly because every little noise made her jump. Finally, she flipped on the TV, letting the sounds of whatever station it was on cover up any distractions. And every now and again, she held out her hand, letting loose change from the floor fly around her, spinning slightly. Just to give her something to distract herself with. Get in some practicing with her ferrokinesis.

Around Noon, she ate a bit of the breakfast Kit had left her, then went back to the book; it was a mystery novel, taking place on a train, and she was starting to get a little uneasy with the child murder backstory, but she’d like to finish the story and at least figure out the ending. She’d remembered seeing this book on her father’s desk quite a few times, but she’d never actually read it. She wondered what he’d have to say about it.

She was getting close to the end when she started feeling a bit warm. She rolled up her sleeves slightly, but that didn’t seem to help much. She felt a sting in her chest, and she slowly put the book down, breathing slowly. Maybe she was about to panic again? No, no, this didn’t feel like that. It felt… wrong.

She clutched her chest, doubling over and screaming as she suddenly felt as if she was on fire. Even after the flash of pain ended- which was relatively quickly- Violet still kept screaming, eventually throwing her hands over her ears and backing up onto the couch, struggling to keep herself calm.

_You’re not there. You’re not there. The fire’s gone. There’s no fire. There’s no fire, you’re here, you’re… you’re safe._

_You’re not safe. You’re never safe._

It took a minute, but eventually she sat up, breathing normally again. Quietly, she whispered, “Klaus, what was that?”

It took a minute to get her answer; her image of Klaus appeared beside her on the couch, looking over the book, before saying, “That wasn’t good.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Klaus smirked at her. “I thought you were Sherlock. Remember? When we played dolls?”

“That’s not-”

“You were Sherlock, I was Nancy. Because you liked those books better, and I liked the other ones, so-”

“Klaus, what happened to me? Is it what happened last night, when I woke up?” she held back tears. “What’s _happening_ to me?”

“I told you last year, but clearly you weren’t paying attention.” Klaus said, looking up at her. “You’re connected.”

“Con- what?”

“To the kids from the Rainbow Room. You feel what they feel.”

“I-” Violet’s eyes widened. “They’re on _fire?”_

“Well, presumably only one of them. And not _now,_ the pain went away, so-”

“What’s happening? Who’s in danger?”

“Well, it’s not going to be that easy to find out, you’ve got six kids to-”

“God, why can’t you be useful?”

“Why can’t you be patient?”

“Why can’t- _ugh!_ Okay.” Violet jumped off of the couch, scanning the floor for where she left the blindfold. “I’m going to try the Void again.”

“Not gonna work without Kit.”

“I have to try. What else can I do?” Violet paused as she picked up the blindfold. “Why don’t you like Kit, anyway?”

“Hmm. You’re not gonna want to hear it.”

“That’s what _she_ keeps telling me.”

“It’s true. Oh, you’re going to want to static the TV.”

Violet considered, before flicking her hand, watching the television turn off. “Don’t think that’ll help.”

“A distraction might help. You have trouble focusing when it’s just silent.”

“Then keep talking.” Violet said, pulling her ribbon off of her wrist and tying it around her hair.

“I’m not actually talking.”

“So you keep reminding me.”  

“It’s been a while since you’ve chosen to talk to me.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve been alone.”

“True.”

Violet took a deep breath, and then asked, “Did the Lab catch Quigley?”

Klaus was silent.

“Please. Do they have him?”

Klaus stood up, walking over and looking up at her. When they were facing each other, he said, “That’s the wrong question.”

Violet gripped harder onto the blindfold in her hands. “What’s the right question?”

“There are quite a few to choose from.” Klaus said. “For example, why won’t Kit tell you anything?”

“She-”

“And why’s she so insistent her brother’s dead? Wouldn’t she want him to be alive? Why would she trust the Lab’s word on it?”

“She-”

“She talks a _lot_ about that brother to you.” Klaus said. “Lemony. More than the others.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Klaus watched her for a moment, and then said, “On second thought, you probably shouldn’t know yet. You won’t like it.”

“You know what? I don’t have time for this.” Violet snapped. “I’m going into the Void and finding Quigley. If he’s not hurt, I’ll find Klaus and Sunny.”

“Not gonna be easy.”

“Fuck off.”

Klaus shrugged, and then disappeared.

Violet sat cross-legged on the ground, tied the blindfold around her eyes, and  tried to focus.

 

Maybe her ESP-Klaus had been a bit right about the whole “going into the Void is impossible without Kit” thing.

Violet tried everything for the next few hours. She sat in silence, only to be bothered by all the small noises around her. She turned the TV on to drown out distractions, but that didn’t work, either. She turned the static on, but it just hurt her ears. She turned the TV off and found a radio that played music, but “Africa” was just more distracting than any other noises might be.

The clock kept ticking, and Violet got more frustrated with every minute that passed. Why couldn’t she just _focus?_ Why did she have to get distracted so easily, even with her ribbon holding her hair back? Why couldn’t she just _do this?_

Well… maybe she could get something to help. Kit had used her abilities to block out her hearing, which had helped a ton. Maybe Kit had headphones somewhere. Violet stood up, pulling off the blindfold and shoving it into her pocket. She could find something, probably. She just had to do some digging. She’d just have to make sure nothing was out of place, or maybe just apologize to Kit later. She’d understand, especially if Violet told her that the other children might be in danger.

Violet wandered through the kitchen, going through drawers and cabinets. When she didn’t find anything, she wandered over to Kit’s room; she hadn’t been there before, so she paused a minute to survey the area. It was small, with several more bookshelves lining the walls and more book piles on the floor, clothes tossed haphazardly into the corner of the room, a small closet of her clean outfits hanging slightly open. It looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in a while.

Violet slowly moved over to a desk that was shoved in the corner. She felt slightly bad about this, but… she’d apologize later. She just needed something to block out the noise.

_Kit’ll probably be home soon. You can just ask her to help you get into the Void._

_I can’t wait any longer. What if something happens to Quigley, or Klaus, or Sunny, or Quigley’s siblings, or Fiona? Or that other girl they’re with? I have to go as fast as possible, so I can figure out what’s happening and fix it._

She slowly pulled open a dresser drawer, seeing some scattered notebooks, and even more novels. _God, Kit, you work at a Library, why do you_ own _all of these?_ She opened another drawer, seeing several pencils scattered around.

She had to kneel down to open a third drawer, on the side of the desk. She stared down at what looked like a bunch of files, and her eyes darted to a corner of the drawer, where the edge of a photo was peeking out from the top of a folder. Slowly, Violet reached forwards, pulling out the small black-and-white picture. She stared for a long time as she realized what it was.

In the photo, a young Kit, maybe eighteen years old, was seated on a couch, wearing thick white gloves that Violet had seen her still wear on occasion. She had a book in her hands, and she was leaning up against a boy who must have been Jacques. On the ground, the other Experiments were spread out over a board game. Sixteen-year-old Ellington Feint was on one end, next to a boy who must have been Olaf, but Violet darted her eyes away from him. On the other side of the board was a boy with a blurry face who was probably Lemony, and next to him was… was Beatrice. Her Mother looked, in this photo, about the same age as Violet was. She was brushing a short strand of hair back, her gloves a darker color than Kit’s, her other hand touching Lemony’s. She looked a little calm, smiling slightly, but still a bit too stiff to be truly relaxed. In fact, everyone looked like that.

Violet picked up the folder, flipping it open, scanning over several other photos shoved inside. Most of them were childhood pictures, in black-and-white or faded colors. Occasionally, there’d be a photo of the experiments in hospital gowns, and Violet tried not to linger on those for very long. Kit wasn’t actually in a lot of the photos, Violet noticed; she mostly only had pictures of her siblings and the other numbers. She wondered how Kit had managed to get these; had she managed to grab them all before escaping from the Lab?

There was one photo in the back that Violet eventually picked up, dropping the rest of the folder onto the ground as she did. It was a picture of three kids, maybe twelve. Beatrice was on the right side of the picture, holding up a book and looking like she was ranting about something- at least, Violet assumed; she had the same look on her face that Klaus did whenever he got excited and didn’t notice he’d been rambling about the same passage for an hour. Next to her was a boy who was probably Lemony, as he and Beatrice were both wearing hospital gowns; she couldn’t get a good look at his face, mainly because the other child had shoved a hat over his head, and was laughing brightly. It took Violet a moment to recognize the other boy; he was wearing normal clothes, if not a bit dated, and he didn’t look like Jacques or Olaf.

When she realized that the other boy was Bertrand, she suddenly felt very sad.

She stared at the photo for a long time, glancing between her parents, who looked about the same age as- shit, Klaus would be _older_ than they were in this photo. He was be thirteen now. God, they all looked so _young…_

Slowly, Violet put the pictures back in the folder. Hopefully Kit wouldn’t notice she’d gone through them. But before she put it back in the drawer, Violet pulled out another file that had been inside. Maybe there were more pictures in here. Maybe she could see more of her parents. She knew she should probably still be looking for something to help her get into the Void, but… well, the photos were _right here_.

She pulled out the next file, flipping it open, before feeling very confused. This one was full of scattered papers, all looking very formal. She tried reading through one, but she got bored only a few paragraphs in, not even bothering to try and process it; it was all big words and scientific talk, and she wasn’t even sure what for. She tossed the file next to the folder of pictures, reaching for the next one. She flipped it open, thinking that this one was probably another boring bunch of papers, and she should _probably_ get back to her search for headphones.

Instead, when she saw what was in the file, she instantly felt her blood run cold.

_No._

She held the folder in shaking hands, staring down in complete disbelief. No, no, she wasn’t seeing this. She was imagining it. This wasn’t… this couldn’t be… Kit couldn’t _have this_ , there couldn’t…

She shut her eyes, as if she could make it disappear just by not thinking about it. She reached out a bit, too, and when she opened her eyes, seeing that the papers were still there, she heard Klaus speaking beside her.

“Sorry, Vi.”

_No, this isn’t real._

“Sorry.”

_How did she get her hands on these?_

“You know.”

_No, no, that’s not… She’s not…_

“You need to go.”

_No. No!_

“You need to get out.”

_No!_

Violet heard, distantly, a door swing open. She knew that she should probably shove the files back into the drawer, and go somewhere else, and pretend that none of this had ever happened. She should get Kit’s help, and go into the Void, and find out who was in danger and where they were. She should ignore this. At the very least, she shouldn’t let Kit find out that she knew.

But she couldn’t _move._

“Violet? Hey, I’m back!”

She couldn’t even fucking move. She couldn’t do anything but stare at the file in shock, desperately wishing that it would change in front of her eyes. Desperately wishing she hadn’t been so fucking wrong about everything.

“Got to take off a bit early, I threw up in the breakroom and they told me I could go home.”

Kit was looking for her. She’d find her in a minute. She really should move.

She didn’t move.

“Violet? Are you here?”

She didn’t say anything. She just tried to keep herself from panicking, tried to keep herself breathing, even as her eyes were glued entirely to the files.

Violet heard the bedroom door creak open, and she finally moved slightly, just to look up at Kit.

“Hey, what are you-” Kit began, only to cut herself off once she realized what was in Violet’s hands.

There was a dead silence for a very, very long time.

And then Violet asked, in a voice tinged with fury, “So. Did the Lab give you my file before or after I showed up?”

“Violet, they don’t-”

“And when,” she asked, “Were you planning to tell me that you still worked for them?”


	31. Duncan has a Flashback

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**

_Duncan has a Flashback_

 

“We’re too late.” Duncan whispered, eyes wide. “We’re too _late!”_

“What’s happening?” Klaus asked, flinching as the alarms got louder and louder.

Duncan didn’t respond, instead breaking away from his friend and rushing back to the hospital room. Klaus hurriedly followed, ignoring the stunned guards behind them.

“What’s going on?” Carmelita asked, as Duncan and Klaus both entered, the latter kicking the door shut.

“We’re under attack!” Duncan shouted. “The Shadow’s attacking the Lab, he led them right to us!”

“What are you talking about?” Isadora jumped up, as Quigley gave Duncan a silent glare.

“He’s a spy!” Duncan said. “The Shadow’s looking through Quigley to see where we are!”

“He’s lying!” Quigley suddenly shouted, sitting upright. “He’s _lying!”_

Duncan stepped back, throwing her hands over his ears and shaking slightly. Klaus was the first one to react, turning to Fiona. “We need to knock him out.”

“No! He’s _lying!”_

Fiona glanced to Quigley, and then said, “There’s a syringe on the counter. I’ll get it.”

“What are you _doing?”_ Isadora asked, looking startled.

“He’s _lying!”_ Quigley screamed again, and he tried to get up. Isadora immediately turned to hold him back, and Carmelita rushed to help, as Sunny pressed her hands over her ears, starting to cry slightly. _“He’s lying! He’s lying!”_

“Quigley-”

_“He’s lying!”_

They all jumped upon hearing a loud _bang_ from outside.

“Was that a gunshot?” Carmelita asked, startled.

_“He’s lying! He’s lying!”_

Fiona moved forwards slightly with a syringe. “This’ll knock him out for a few hours.”

_“No! He’s lying! He’s-”_

“Isadora, hold him down.” Duncan whispered, stepping back some more, pressing his hands more over his ears and looking close to breaking down.

_“He’s ly-”_

Isadora whipped towards Quigley, pushing him down slightly. “Quigley! Quigley, listen to me!” Quigley shut up for a moment, looking furious, as she asked, “Do you know who I am?”

Quigley stared at her in a tense silence, as Isadora repeated, her voice breaking a little, “Do you _know who I am?”_

He looked a little stunned, a little confused. “You’re…” he said, stumbling over his words. “You’re- you’re… you’re…”

Isadora stared at him, her face falling. Then, almost whispering, she said, “Klaus, hold him down.”

“No!” Quigley shouted, and Klaus hesitantly held out his hand, watching as the boy was pushed backwards against the bed. Sunny let out a small cry, and Isadora stepped back, tears springing to her eyes, running towards Duncan and grabbing his arm. “No! No! Let me go! Let me _go!”_

Fiona moved forwards, rolling up his sleeve and sticking the syringe in his arm. For a few moments, Quigley kept shouting, but his screams got quieter and quieter as Fiona pulled the syringe back, shoving it into her pocket.

Before they could think of what else to do, Duncan let out a scream, backing away from Isadora and collapsing into a chair as the alarms grew louder.

“No!” Isadora shouted, running to her brother and putting her hands on his shoulders. “No, Duncan-”

Klaus ran to Sunny and picked her up as she let out a frightened shout, and Duncan, breathing raggedly, whispered something under his breath. “Duncan, no, don’t…” Isadora began.

The door swung open, and everyone jumped, turning around. Fiona raised her hands, and Carmelita backed up, looking around for some kind of weapon.

They were surprised to see two adults standing in the doorway; Klaus recognized the woman quickly as the one they’d met in the hall. She glanced over the room, and then said, quietly, “Goddamnit. This couldn’t be easy, could it?”

“Is it ever?” the man beside her asked, almost sarcastically.

“Not really.”

“Who the _fuck_ are you?” Carmelita asked.

Before she could answer, they heard a terrifying, familiar screech from behind them. The teens all jumped, and Duncan let out a shout. The woman turned her attention to him, and said quickly, “We need to move, the creatures got in here. Kellar, take the sleeping kid, we’ll-”

“Don’t touch him!” Fiona said quickly, running to block their way to Quigley.

The woman sighed. “Look, kid, we don’t have time for this. Something’s in this building, and we need to get the hell out of here. Kellar, where’s everyone else?”

“Pip and Squeak got our files out of the storeroom,” the man said, shooting Fiona an apologetic look as he broke past her to pick up Quigley, ignoring Carmelita’s shocked reaction. “Jake and Cleo are waiting for us.”

“So they’re not here?”

“I told them to go; they better be out, or I’m going to have some serious words with them.”

The woman moved a bit closer to Duncan, and Isadora instinctively threw herself in front of her brother, shaking slightly. “Who the _hell_ are you?”

“Long story short, we’re getting you out of here.” the woman said. “What’s happening to him? Why is he freaking out? Did something set him off? How can we calm him down?”

“I don’t-”

They heard the screech again, and the woman slowly glanced around, her eyes staying on Klaus and Sunny for a moment, looking sad. “Look, kids. You have every right not to trust us; I know we’re just some random people who showed up in this… hellhole. But if you want to get out of here alive, you’re going to have to follow us.”

They glanced at each other, considering for a long while, and then Fiona said, “If you hurt us, I will kill you.”

The woman looked Fiona over. “You’re the poison girl, right? I believe you.” she turned back to Isadora. “I’ll carry your brother.”

“I can take him-”

“You can stay by me, I won’t make you split up, but I can carry him. Come on, we have to move, before the creatures find us.”

“Demogorgon.” Sunny muttered, hugging herself closer to Klaus.

“I know, I know.” he muttered.

Isadora hesitantly stared at the woman, and then nodded, tears streaming down her face. The woman cautiously reached forwards and lifted Duncan, who was still breathing hard and didn’t look present in the moment, but thankfully didn’t seem to struggle that much.

“We’re going to move out now.” the woman said. “Okay? Stay close to us.”

Fiona grabbed Carmelita by the arm, dragging her over to Isadora and Klaus, and they began to run.

 

Sunny pressed herself closer to Klaus, shutting her eyes tight as lights flashed around them. They could all hear distant screams over the alarms, which was not comforting at all, especially since Duncan started shouting, too, throwing his hands over his ears as the woman struggled to keep a hold on him.

They all slid to a stop halfway through the hallway, when they saw a small Monster burst from around a bend, screeching. Carmelita let out a string of curse words as a second Monster ran after it.

“Great! There _are_ more than one!” Klaus said.

They turned slightly, only to hear more gunshots from the hall they’d just come from. Kellar swore under his breath, and the woman ran towards an open door, peering inside before shouting, “In here! Go!”

They rushed into the room, with the woman running and dropping Duncan into a corner, before moving to shut the door behind them, shoving a chair underneath. Klaus quickly surveyed the room, seeing a filing cabinet in the corner and a wall of security monitors across from them. Kellar dropped Quigley onto a table, and Isadora knelt in front of her brother. “Duncan! Duncan, breathe. One-”

“Oh, holy shit.” Fiona said, staring at the security cameras.

They all turned, watching to see several recordings of hallways across the Lab. On every screen, there was at least one small monster running down, bodies littering the floors around them.

“Fuck.” Carmelita muttered.

The lights flickered above them, and they all jumped, as Duncan kept screaming. Klaus backed up, dropping down to sit beside Isadora, staring at his friend, feeling more panicked than he had in a long time.

The lights went out, as did the security monitors.

“Oh no.” Fiona said.

“They’ve gone into a complete shutdown.” the woman muttered. “Kellar, can you get the lights on?”

“Not as good as Cleo could’ve, but I can see what I can do.”

“And I’ll see what I can do about the kid. You’re Fiona, right?” Surprised, Fiona nodded. The woman reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out a map and tossing it to her. “You know where the nearest exit is?”

“I can figure it out.” Carmelita volunteered.

“Chart us a course.” the woman said, before moving towards the corner, kneeling beside Klaus, watching Duncan. “Okay, buddy, it’s going to be okay.” She glanced towards Isadora, who was sobbing, Sunny, who was intensely watching her friend, and Klaus, who’d gone a bit into shock. “Is this a panic attack?”

“I don’t- don’t think so. I don’t know.” Isadora said. She reached forwards, touching her brother’s hand. “Duncan, what’s happening?”

“His nose is bleeding.” Klaus noted quietly. “He might be overstimulated.”

“Shit.” the woman muttered. “Let me try-”

“Breathe.” Duncan muttered, backing himself farther into the corner.

“Oh no.” Klaus whispered.

“Fire. Thirteen. Fourteen. Rainbow. Storm.”

“No, no, no…” Isadora murmured. “No-”

The woman suddenly reached forwards, also putting her hand over Duncan’s. “You’re Duncan, huh?”

“Breathe. Fire.”

“You called me, kid. You remember that? I didn’t think you’d still be here, honestly. I’m sorry, I’d found out you all went on the run and I was hoping you’d find my contacts…”

“Thirteen. Fourteen.” Klaus and Isadora shared a stunned look, and Sunny slowly turned to look at the woman.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to stop all of this. Are you okay? Can you hear me?”

“Rainbow. Storm.”

“Duncan, can you _hear me?”_

Slowly, Duncan whispered, “I… something’s happening, I’m hearing… hearing words…”

Klaus paused, before handing Sunny to Isadora. “Hold on a moment.” he said. “Duncan, I-I’m going to try and sense what’s wrong with you.”

The woman gave Klaus a concerned look, before calling, “Kellar! How we looking?”

“Bad, but we should be safe in here for now.” he said. “So long as the creatures don’t find us.”

Klaus shut his eyes, gripping the edge of his shirt. “What’s the kid doing?” the woman asked carefully.

“He and Sunny have extrasensory perception.” Isadora explained quietly. “But he needs to focus.”

“Does he need anything else?”

“I don’t… I don’t know…” Isadora glanced from Quigley to Duncan. “I… I don’t know what to do… we’re all going to die, aren’t we?”

“No.” the woman shook her head. “No. We are not dying. Not here. I will get you out of here, I promise you.”

Klaus shut his eyes, struggling to focus. _You can do this. You can do this. Find out what’s wrong with Duncan. Help him. Help him._

Klaus put a hand onto Duncan’s leg, trying to keep himself calm. And after a moment, he said, very quietly, “Oh, we should’ve predicted this.”

“What?” Isadora asked, very concerned.

“He hasn’t messed with memories in a year.” Klaus said, too calmly, “He isn’t trained for this. He’s overstimulated, he’s panicking, and that’s not helping his- Duncan, just relax.”

“Breathe…”

“Duncan. You’re freaking out, and a memory’s trying to resurface.” Klaus said.

“A _what_ is doing _what?”_ Isadora asked.

“You’re panicking,” Klaus said carefully, “And overstimulating. And you’re being hit with a lot right now. So your abilities are acting up, and they’re acting up on _you._ You’re subconsciously trying to use your powers on yourself.”

 _“He’s what?”_ Isadora shouted.

“You’re trying to remember something, something you don’t want to think about. Just let it come out. We’ll be here.”

“I-I can’t-”

“It’s okay, Duncan.” Klaus said, before leaning forwards and hugging him. “It’s okay. Just remember. Once it’s done, you’ll be okay. And we’ll be right here.”

Duncan shut his eyes, and then whispered, “Breathe…”

 

_“Breathe…”_

_It came in flashes._

_“Breathe. Breathe. It’s just a nightmare, honey, everything’s okay.”_

_His eyes were suddenly open, and everything was blurry. “Mama?”_

_“Yes, yes, I’m here.” Mother was there. Mother was in front of him. She was crying. Why was she crying? Mother was sad. She shouldn’t be sad._

_“Wha’s happening?” he was confused. Lost. He didn’t know where they were; this room was unfamiliar, and dark, and he was cold, and his arm hurt. His arm hurt a lot._

_“It’s okay, baby. It’s going to be okay.” She sounded scared, but Mothers didn’t get scared. “You’re okay. We need to run, okay? Mother’s going to carry you. Father’s got your siblings.”_

_“Mama?” Why did his arm hurt?_

“Breathe.”

_They were running. Hiding. Vi and Klaus were there, too, along with his siblings, but out of all of them, only Vi was awake, and she wouldn’t stop crying. He wanted to cry, too. His arm still hurt. Mother was holding him too tight. He didn’t know where he was. He was scared, and cold, and tired. And their parents were scared. Parents shouldn’t get scared. Something was bad._

_“We need to get out.” Vi’s Mother said, holding a sleeping Klaus. “I can cause a distraction, but you’re all going to have to stay behind me.”_

_“Beatrice, no-” Vi’s Father said, as Vi kept crying._

_“This place is going down.”_

_“We haven’t found Fiona.”_

_“They’ll have moved her, she’s not here.”_

_“We need to check the room, we can’t just_ leave _her.”_

_Fiona? Where was she? She was fun. She was nice. Why was she gone? He was crying, and Vi’s Mother opened a door, and moved Klaus so that she could hold out one hand. And then there was…_

Fire.  

_They were still running, and he was crying. Mother was shushing him, trying to calm him, but they were still running and he was still scared. He was so scared. He felt like something awful was happening, and there was too much fire. Something was loud. Alarms. They were too loud!_

_They had stopped. Mother was whispering to him, and he could see that Vi was close to him, still crying, listening a bit._

_“Let’s try that thing your Father taught you, okay?” Mother whispered. “Count with me, okay? One, two, three, four.”_

_“Five. Six. Seven.”_

_They all looked a bit sad. Why were they sad? Why did his arm still hurt?_

_“Eight. Nine. Ten.”_

_He couldn’t cont past that quite yet. Mother picked up, whispering, and he saw Vi’s Mother hand Klaus over to her husband, before running around a corner._

_“Eleven. Twelve.”_

_He heard screams, then. Beside him, Isa woke up in Father’s arms, startled by the noise._

“Thirteen. Fourteen.”

_Isa was crying, Vi was crying, he was crying. Everything was too loud._

_They stopped outside a room. Father went inside, and came out shaking his head. “She’s not here.”_

_“Of course she’s not. They moved her.” Vi’s Mother was saying. “We’re not going to find her.”_

_Wait. He knew this room._

_“I want to help her, too, but we have to leave_ now _, or none of us are getting out of here.”_  

_He recognized the sticker on the wall._

Rainbow.

_They were almost outside. Mother said so._

_There was a man there, someone he didn’t know. He was talking to Vi’s Mother._

_“You can’t just leave.”_

_“Please, please just help us get out! They can’t stay here.”_

_“Three, we can’t be out there, without-”_

_“They hurt us! They’ll hurt them! Please, please. We can’t let what happened to Lemony and Ellington happen to them.”_

_He didn’t like that. He started to cry again, and his Mother held him tighter._

_And then he heard the strange man say, “Run.”_

_And they ran._

_He heard another loud noise, and he let out a slight scream. “It’s just thunder, Dun.” Mother said quickly. “Be quiet, okay? It’s just thunder, it won’t hurt you, we’ll be out soon.”_

_He heard more shouting. More screams. He just wanted to_ go.

 _“It’s just a_ storm.”

 

Duncan sat up, shocked, his heart pounding. Isadora and Klaus jumped back, releasing him from a hug.

“Are you okay?” Isadora asked quickly.

Duncan’s eyes darted around the room. “Wh-where- what-?”

“Are you _okay?”_

Duncan glanced between them, and then he started crying, and they hugged him again.

They were quiet for a moment, and then he heard Fiona.

“We’re here, our exit is here. But even if we could make it there, there’s no way out. We’ve gone into lockdown.”

“Fucking wonderful.” Carmelita said. Then, after a pause, “Oh, shit, Duncan’s back!”

Duncan pulled away quickly, and saw Fiona and Carmelita run over, the latter holding Sunny. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“I-I…” Duncan shook slightly. “Where’s Quigley? Where’s-”

“He’s okay.” Klaus said quickly. “What happened? Are _you_ okay?”

“I… I don’t… I…” Duncan struggled to keep his breathing level. “I…”

“Don’t crowd him!” Isadora finally said. “Everyone just… move back a little, okay?”

“I’m fine, I just…” He shut his eyes, trying not to cry. “I’m… I just saw… we need to move, we need to get out of here-”

“We’ll get out as soon as we figure out how to avoid the lockdown.” Fiona said. “Not all of us can crawl through vents right now, not that I see one, I’m not sure if my poison will work on the Monsters and I don’t want to risk it-”

“Speaking of which,” said a voice behind them, “Let’s get back to planning, we don’t know how long it’ll take those things to figure out we’re here, and we’re basically sitting ducks.”

Hesitantly, the other teens backed up slightly, and Duncan looked over at the two adults standing by a table in the corner, a map unrolled beside them. It was a bit hard to see them well in the dimly-lit room, but he wasn’t entirely sure he recognized them. Fiona and Carmelita went towards them, placing Sunny beside the map, but they kept glancing back at Duncan with poorly-hidden concern. After a second, the woman stepped forwards a bit, and she said, “Hey, kid. Do you need anything?”

Duncan stared at her for a moment, trying to process where he’d heard her voice before. She turned to his sister. “You’re Isadora, right? Can you keep an eye on him?”

“Of course.” Isadora nodded.

“And you’re Klaus, right? Beatrice’s son?”

Klaus hesitantly nodded.

“You want to use that perception thing? Could help us plan an escape route.”

“I- I can try.” Klaus said hesitantly.

“If you can’t-”

“No, no! Just give me a minute.”

Duncan finally got it, and he looked up at the woman as Isadora put an arm around him, holding him closer.

“M-Moxie?”

The woman smiled slightly. “Sorry you got into this mess, kiddo.”


	32. Violet and Kit have a bit of an Argument

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, another warning for this chapter: it's basically just a nonstop argument that gets *incredibly* intense.

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO**

_Violet and Kit have a bit of an Argument_

 

13 NOVEMBER 1983

EXPERIMENT 007 - LEGAL NAME: VIOLET BAUDELAIRE

 _Marked_ 11 October 1973

 _Began Testing_ 9 November 1983

CURRENT ABILITIES

    * MANIPULATION OF METAL
      * _Manifested_ 6 November 1983
      * Does not appear to have any weaknesses, aside from the normal exhaustion
    * EXTRASENSORY PERCEPTION  

      * _Manifested_ 12 November 1983
      * Shows perception while concentrating, appears to have a link to 010 that spans past the Gate [ _See:_ 010]



 

Attached to the file was a photo of her, her hair pinned up as she sat behind a table, a metal box hovering slightly above it. She remembered that exact moment, but she had no idea they’d been taking pictures of her. Or that Kit would have these papers at all.

Violet dropped the file onto the ground, her hands still shaking.

“Violet, listen-”

“You’re still with them.” Violet said. “They gave you this file, you’re _working_ with them-”

“Violet, they don’t know you’re here!” Kit said quickly. “I didn’t-”

“You’re _working with them!”_

“Violet, please, just calm down a moment-”

“I’m not going to _calm down!”_ Violet jumped to her feet, trying to hold back furious tears. “Kit, you _know!_ You _know_ what they’ve _done!_ To all of us!”

“Listen, just listen for a few-”

“I don’t want to hear your _bullshit_!” Violet screamed. “What was your plan? Just wait until Quigley and I were both here and then turn us in?”

“No-”

“Did they tell you Mother was dead, then? Did they tell you they _killed her?”_

“Violet!” Kit shouted. “Just _listen_ to me for five goddamn seconds!”

“No.” Violet stepped back, shaking her head. “No. No, I can’t-” She shut her eyes. “That’s why you didn’t tell me how you escaped. Cause you never did. And why you’re not hiding. You don’t need to.”

“Violet, listen to me. It’s not as bad as you think-”

“They tried to _kill me!”_ Violet screamed. “They _killed my fucking parents!_ Kit, do you know what they could have _done_ to me in there? What they could have done to my _siblings?_ What they _did_ to-”

“Of course I _know_!” Kit shouted. “I grew _up_ there, Violet! I know _exactly_ what goes on!”

“Then why the _hell_ are you still _there?”_

“Look, Violet, sweetie,” Kit said quickly, trying to speak as fast as she could without Violet screaming over her, “Look, I know it’s difficult, it’s hard on all of us, but we’re different, we-”

“Bullshit!”

“We’re _different,_ Violet! We have to be-”

“That’s _bullshit!”_

“Vi-”

“So is the Library job some kind of fucking cover story?”

“No, no, I work there, I- they let me get a job a few years ago-”

“They _let_ you?”

“And so long as I come in when they need-”

“So long as you let them torture you for kicks?”

“It’s for scientific advancement-”

 _“Kit!”_ Violet shouted. “They’re hurting you! They’re abusing you, Kit, you need to _leave!”_

“I can’t just _leave!_ They need me-”

 _“Fuck_ them! Fuck what they need! They’re just using you!”

“You don’t know _anything_ about them! You were there a _week,_ when they were desperate. I’ve been there my whole life, Violet, and just because they can be strict-”

 _“Strict?”_ Violet was absolutely infuriated. “Kit, they _drugged me!”_

“It’s-”

“They beat the _shit_ out of me!”

“I’m-”

“They were going to _fucking kill me!_ They were going to leave Quigley to _die!_ They were going to torture Klaus and Sunny like they tortured me, and they couldn’t have survived that! The only reason _I’m_ still alive is through sheer dumb luck! Kit, they burned down my house, they killed my parents, they threatened my siblings, and I’ve been on the run for a _year!_ Because they want me dead!”

“They don’t want you _dead!”_

“Oh? Did they tell you that themselves? Did you ask about me when I showed up?”

“Violet, they don’t know you’re here. I’m not going to force you back there before-”

“Before _what_? Before I’m ready to get slapped around? Before I’m prepared to be treated like a lab rat?”

“Violet!”

“Or is that ‘before they asked about you’? Before they _wanted_ me back?”

“I’m not going to force you back before you’re ready.” Kit stated, stepping back slightly. “But, Violet, listen, they need us, and we need them-”

“Bullshit! We don’t need them!”

“They’re trying to figure out our abilities, Vi!”

“You think they’re doing that for _us?_ They’re doing it so they can _use_ us! For experiments, as weapons, what _ever!_ They don’t give a flying _fuck_ about us!”

“Violet-”

“They’ve kept you imprisoned since you were three, Kit! You don’t think that’s a little off?”

“They _saved_ us!” Kit shouted back. “They saved us, we were lost and alone and if our abilities manifested alone, what the _fuck_ do you think would have happened to us?”

“That’s just the bullshit they told you! You could-”

“And they were _fucking right!_ Lem went out into the world and he got the shit beaten out of him!”

“He-”

“No!” Kit screamed. “You are going to _listen to me!”_

“Listen to _me!”_

“We were _safe_ in the Lab! They kept us _safe_ from the world!”

“They kept you _hidden_ from the world! They kept you isolated and alone so you wouldn’t know that you deserve _better!”_ Violet’s voice broke, and she spoke more softly when she said, “You do. You deserve better, Kit.”

“You deserve to be _safe.”_

“How… how are you not seeing this?” Violet asked. “They _hurt_ people. They _killed_ people. They hurt _children._ Klaus was two years old and they tattooed a number on his wrist so that they didn’t have to think of him as a human being!”

“Lem was a baby when he got his mark. They show we’re different.”

“Stop _saying_ this shit!” Violet shouted. She ran over to the floor, picking up the folder of photos and then racing forwards to shove it into Kit’s arms. “Look at those! Those are _children! Babies!_ They beat and tortured you! They drugged you and electrocuted you and tossed you into isolation and sensory deprivation-”

“Stop it.” Kit said, even as she flipped the folder open. “Stop it!”

“Mother got us out of there, because she didn’t want us to go through the same shit she did! Lemony and Ellington ran because-”

“They’re dead.”

“They told you that they’re dead because they don’t want you to think it’s possible to escape!”

“They’re _dead.”_

“They faked my death, Kit, they faked Quigley’s, you said you didn’t even see a body!”

“They don’t lie to me.”

“They’ve been lying to you for your entire life!”

Kit glared over at the girl. “They don’t lie to me. _You’ve_ been lied to, your parents didn’t tell you _shit!”_

“There’s a _fucking difference!_ They didn’t electrocute me when I argued with them!”

“They set you up to be lost in a world that could not help you! Your Mother never even told you that you’re-”

“Don’t you _fucking dare!”_ Violet pushed past Kit, trying to move down the hall so that the woman couldn’t see her struggling not to sob. “You don’t get to say that _shit_ about them! They did what they thought they had to!”

“They were _wrong!”_

“ _You’re_ wrong!” Violet screamed. “You’re _wrong,_ and I do _not_ have time for this _bullshit!”_

She started running, then, racing through the kitchen even as Kit called after her. She leapt over piles of books, racing into her room and grabbing her bag off of the floor; everything was still inside, she could just go now.

“Violet!”

Violet marched out her door, trying to break past Kit, who had made it to the living room. Kit, however, grabbed her forearm, yanking her back.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m fucking off. I’m finding Quigley.”

“You can’t just _leave_ on your own!”

“I don’t care.”

“Violet, you’re going to get yourself killed!”

“I don’t _care!”_ Violet screamed. _“Anything_ is better than there! Don’t you get it? I’d rather _die_ than go back to the Lab!”

“You just don’t get it yet-”

“I will _never_ let them touch me again!” Violet yelled, trying to pull away from Kit. “I am _never_ going back!”

She cocked her head, and a lamp flew from the table, hitting Kit in the back. Kit started, but didn’t break her grip. “Violet!”

“Let _go of me!”_

“Violet, I can’t just let you run off alone, you’re going to die!”

“You can come, too! But you can’t go back, either.” Violet said shakily. “You can come but you have to _leave._ You _should_ leave, they’re only going to hurt you.”

“I-I can’t just-”

“Then let go.”

“Violet-”

“Why can’t you _see?”_ Violet felt tears start to fall. “They’re _evil_ people.”

“People aren’t either good or evil.” Kit said softly.

“They’re _evil.”_ Violet stated. “They killed my fucking parents. My parents just wanted to keep us _safe,_ they were _good people_ and the Lab slaughtered them.”

Kit, already very upset, got a very sad look in her eyes. “So you _don’t_ know? What we _did?”_

“The _hell_ does that mean?”

“I was there, Violet. Your Mother, Blank Slate and I got to go with Mr Feint to find Olaf. He was alone, his powers might be awakening soon, and we needed to train him.”

“They needed to _torture_ him! Kit-”

“And his parents just wanted to hide him!”

“They wanted him safe! Like Mother wanted me!” Violet screamed. “But, no, he went to the Lab, and then he was in charge of all their twisted experiments! He was-” her breath caught in her throat. “The only reason he can’t hurt me is because-”

Did Kit know? That a Monster jumped out of the wall while he was there? That he was probably dead? _Don’t be so sure, Violet._ No, no, he had to be dead. He had to be gone. She wouldn’t consider the idea he might be out there, ready to capture her again…

Before she could articulate her thoughts, Kit shouted, “I was _there,_ Vi! He needed to come with us, so we did what we needed to do!”

“I don’t give a shit-”

“His parents died in a fire, Violet. Who the _fuck_ do you think started it?”

Violet fell completely silent.

“But you know what? It was for the best.” Kit started speaking under her breath, as if still trying to convince herself. “He couldn’t be out there without supervision. He was dangerous. He was in danger. His parents were hurting him. We could protect him. We could train him, we-”

“You’re lying.” Violet said, breathless.

“Why the _hell_ would I lie to you?”

Violet stared at her, horrified, and then she said, “I’m leaving.”

“No, you can’t just _go!”_

“I’m leaving. I’m finding Quigley, I’m _saving_ Quigley, and then I’m finding my siblings, and _we’re_ going to take down the Lab _together,_ and _nothing_ you say is going to stop me!”

“Your Mother wouldn’t have-”

“She wanted me _safe,_ but I can’t be safe until the Lab is _gone!”_ Violet threw out her hand, hitting Kit with the lamp again.

“Stop that!” Kit shouted.

“Let me go!”

“I can’t just-”

“Get the _fuck_ away from me!” Violet shouted. “And figure out that your precious Lab is bullshit!”

“Oh, it’s bullshit?” Kit snapped. “Go ahead and go outside. Why don’t you go out there and show everyone how you can toss metal around with your mind? Think they’ll all be nicer to you? Think they’ll treat you like a Queen?”

“It doesn’t matter what they _could_ do to me! The Lab already hurt us! Kit, they-”

“Look, we’re special.” Kit said, her voice a bit checked-out, as if she was just reciting a line. “We’re different. We get different treatment. It’s not like they’re killing us.”

“They _are!_ They _killed Mother!”_

“Beatrice was trying to kill them, too-”

“Because they were trying to take her _children!”_

_“Violet-”_

And then, almost as if her voice didn’t belong to her, Violet screamed, “Do you want them to take _your_ baby away?”  

There was a dead silence, as both of them realized what had been said.

“Wh-what does _that_ mean?” Kit asked, stunned out of her anger for a moment. “I- I don’t have children.”

Violet reached up with her free hand, feeling the blood under her nose. She peered over Kit’s shoulder, and saw, from across the room, the image of Klaus, watching her blankly. Quietly, he nodded.

“You’re pregnant.” Violet said quietly.

“What? N-no, I’m not, I’m _not,_ I can’t be…”

“You’re pregnant.” Violet repeated.

“No.” Kit shook her head. “No, I-”

Violet felt her heart sink into her chest. “Kit. You _have_ to leave right now. They’re going to take your baby, they’ll-”

“No. No, that’s- I can’t be-” But even as Kit kept denying, Violet could see a familiar look behind her eyes, a look that said she was piecing some things together. “I’m-”

“You have to _leave!_ They’re going to take your kid!”

“I’m not-”

Distantly, they heard the phone ring in the kitchen. Kit jumped, startled, and Violet realized that the grip on her arm had slackened enough that she could get away.

She should stay. Convince Kit to leave. To leave and take her baby somewhere safe. To get _out._

But Kit wasn’t going to leave without a fight, and Violet didn’t have time. She had to find Quigley and her siblings, and she had to do it _now._

They could take down the Lab themselves. They’d just have to hurry it up a little.

Violet wrenched her hand away from Kit, taking off at a run. She’d have to go through the kitchen to get to the door, then she’d just go down the elevator and run as fast as she could. She could find a bus station, she was sure, and make her way to…

“Violet! Wait!”

She was about halfway through the kitchen when the phone rang a third time. She heard Kit slide to a stop behind her, and Violet turned slightly, a flash of fear hitting her. Kit had stopped dead in the middle of the room, suddenly looking incredibly worried. Violet froze in place, wondering if something was wrong with her.

Then Kit ran to the sink and threw up into it.

Violet stood still for a moment, as the phone rang once again. Kit was shaking, gripping onto the edge of the counter, looking as if she might pass out. Violet took a step towards her, until she realized that Kit didn’t look really hurt or sick. Instead, she looked _fucking_ terrified.

The phone rang again, and, in a flash of impulsivity, Violet ran to it and picked it up, her eyes still glued to Kit, who didn’t even glance over, looking pale as a sheet. She heard a voice on the other end, one unfamiliar to her. “Kit? There’s something going on-”

Kit finally looked up from the sink, realizing that Violet had picked up the phone.

“We need you to come in, something’s up with Hawkins.”

_Hawkins._

_Quigley’s in Hawkins._

_One of the Rainbow Room kids is hurt._

_“Something’s up with Hawkins.”_

Kit started forwards, saying, “Violet, put that down-!”

Violet jumped back, a bit in shock, and she instinctively shouted, “Fuck you!” into the phone and slammed it back, hanging up.

She ran back, as Kit picked up the phone, calling into it and realizing quite quickly that the connection had cut off. Violet raced to the door, fumbling with the lock for a moment, temporarily forgetting she could probably just open it with a flick of the wrist. She raised an arm to wipe tears from her face, shaking slightly.

As she finally got the door open, she turned to see Kit had finally come after her, but was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, just watching her, a desperate yet resigned look in her eyes.

“Please.” Violet said quietly. “Just leave with me.”

Kit just stared at her in silence. She shut her eyes, then, and whispered, “You sound just like your Father.”

As Violet watched, Kit took a slight step back. Violet sighed, blinking back tears, and she just said quietly, “You deserve better.”

And then she ran.

 

Violet sat in the back of a bus, lying her head on top of her bag and watching out the window.

She felt horrible, really. She wanted to go back, but she also wanted to run farther. She wanted to get as far away from Hawkins as possible, but she also needed to get there. She wanted Kit to have come with her, she never wanted to see her again. She felt sick, she felt lost, she felt cold, she felt _alone._

She wanted her siblings back.

She shut her eyes, and when she opened them, she asked, “Will you take me to Quigley?”

She heard Klaus’s voice in her head, saw an image of him sitting beside her. “I’ll take you where you need to go.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I can’t give you a better one, not unless you get into the Void.”

“Probably not gonna happen.” Violet sighed. “Guess I’ll just follow you until I’m out of options.” She shut her eyes again, curling up more, but whispered, “Stay with me?”

“If you want.”

The bus sped up slightly, and Violet braced herself. She was going back to Hawkins.

She was going to Quigley.

And then they’d figure something out.


	33. Escape from the Lab

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE**

_Escape from the Lab_

 

“Okay, so,” Fiona said, pointing down at the map, “This is where we are. And _this_ is our nearest exit.”

“We are fucked.” Carmelita said.

Once Duncan could finally stand, they’d all crowded around the small table, with Moxie occasionally shooting worried glances their way, and Kellar looking to the doors or blacked-out monitors.

“Mostly because we’re on lockdown.” Fiona said. “If the power goes out, the building goes on full shutdown.”

“We know that.” Moxie said carefully.

“It’s to prevent break-ins.” Kellar added.

“Or breakouts.” Carmelita huffed.

“But we’re not sure how to start everything up again.” Fiona said. “And if we climb out a window, we risk a lot of noise drawing attention to us.”

“We _can_ turn the power back on,” Moxie said. “But we’ll need to reset the breakers.”

“Mm-hmm, how do you know that?” Isadora asked, holding Duncan a bit tighter; she had her arm around him, just in case he toppled again.

“I’ve been here the last eight months.” Moxie said. “I know my way around.”

“How’d you manage to get in here?” Carmelita asked.

“I have contacts in the government who could fake some papers for us.” Moxie said. “Kellar here came in to watch the Gate, Pip and Squeak were our lookouts and getaway drivers, Jake and Cleo are here to make sure we don’t all die. Plus, they were planning to come back anyway, Jake’s Aunt needed some assistance.”

“Cool. We don’t know who any of those people are.” Carmelita nodded.

“They’re friends, trust me.” Moxie said. She glanced over at Duncan. “Soon as I figured out this place was still up and running, I knew none of us were going to let them do to more kids what they did to our friends.”

“You were friends with our Mother, right?” Klaus asked, as Sunny crawled out of his arms and over towards the map.

Moxie hesitated, before admitting, “More friends with Lemony and Ellington, but I do think she liked us, and we-”

“Cool, cool,” Carmelita snapped, “Can we talk about this after we get out of the pits of hell?”

“You said we could reset the breakers?” Klaus asked.

“Yeah.” Kellar nodded.

“Where are they?”

“Basement.” Kellar said, pointing to the map. “Three floors down.”

“Alright, let’s move out.” Fiona said, starting to step towards the door.

Moxie reached out, pushing her back slightly. “And just _where_ do you think you’re going?”

“To reset the breakers?” Fiona flinched away from Moxie’s touch, and the woman quickly retracted her hand.

“Uh-huh,” Moxie nodded, “Then what?”

“Then we fuck out of here.”

“No, then the power comes back on.” Moxie said.

“If you want the doors open,” Kellar explained, “You’re going to need to reboot the computer system and override the security codes.”

“Cool. How do we do that?”

“Well, for starters, you need to know BASIC.” Kellar said.

“What’s BASIC?” Isadora asked.

“Computer Programming Language.” Klaus explained.

“Ugh, how come we need to know nerd stuff in order to live?” Carmelita groaned.

“Is she always like this?” Kellar asked.

“Yep.” Isadora nodded.

“Kay, alright, teach it to us.” Fiona said.

“You can’t just _learn_ a language in five minutes!” Klaus said.

“Possum.” Sunny said. _“I could.”_

“Yeah, but it’s not like we have a BASIC book lying around you can absorb info from.” Isadora said.

“Also, you’re not going out there.” Fiona said.

“Hey!”

“I second that.” Klaus said.

“Who does know BASIC?” Duncan asked, his voice still very quiet.

“I do.” Kellar said.

“So do I.” Klaus added. They all gave him a look, and he shrugged and said, “Got bored one summer.”

“I’ll go out and reset the breakers.” Kellar said. “The rest of you-”

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you go alone.” Moxie said. “You don’t even have a weapon.”

“He’ll have me.” Klaus said.

“No!” Duncan said instantly.

“I’m not sending _you_ out there, either!” Moxie said. “Look, we snuck out some reports of those creatures, they are _not_ to be messed with.”

“We _know_ that!” Klaus said.

“We almost got killed by one of them last year!” Isadora added.

“But I’m your best weapon against them.” Klaus said. “I’m telekinetic, I can throw those things around, I can break their fucking necks.”

“It’s too risky-”

“I _know_ the risks!” Klaus said. “But if _he_ goes alone, and one of those things finds him, he will die.”

“So will you!” Fiona said.

“ _I_ can fight if I have to!” Klaus shouted.

“Possum!” Sunny added. _“I could, too!”_

“ _You_ are going to stay here.” Klaus said. “I’ll go with him, we hack into the computers, and then we get the fuck out of here.”

“No!” Sunny huffed.

“Kid-” Moxie began.

“Klaus is right.” Carmelita interrupted, glaring down at the table. “He’s the most likely to be able to kill these, seeing as Fiona’s not sure if her poison will work.”

“Klaus, this isn’t a goddamn stroll through the park.” Moxie said.

“I _know_ that. I know what those things can do!” Klaus shouted. “But I’m your best bet for getting the power on and getting out.”

Moxie took a deep breath, and Fiona shut her eyes, clenching her fists and trying not to look at him. Isadora and Duncan both stared at him with pleading eyes, trying to quietly ask him not to go.  

Sunny slowly crawled back over to her brother. “Kla? Sequor!” _“I’ll go with you!”_

“No.” Klaus shook his head. “You stay here where it’s safe.”

“Kla-”

“And,” Klaus said, “If they get into trouble, you rip the monsters limb-from-limb, okay?”

Sunny bit her lip, but nodded, before hugging her brother’s arm, shutting her eyes so he couldn’t notice her crying.

“Okay, kid,” Moxie finally said, leaning forwards, “Look at me.” When Klaus met her eyes, she said, “You can go, but _only_ if you follow instructions.”

“What instructions?” Klaus asked, slowly pulling away from Sunny and crossing his arms.

“You listen to Kellar and do whatever he says, no questions.” Moxie said. “No pointless heroics of any kind; you avoid the creatures if at all possible. Do not go looking for them, do not attack unless they see you and are about to fight. As soon as you hit the breakers…” she glanced down at the map. “Shit, you’ll be farther away from the exit-”

“He can go this way.” Duncan surprised everyone by saying. He grabbed a marker, and charted a quick path. “Just go up the stairwell, head this way, you’ll end up at the same door we’ll be heading to.”

“How’d you know _that_?” Isadora asked sharply.

Duncan shook slightly as he put the marker down. “We went out that way.”

“What?”

“I… Klaus’s Mother set the place on fire, but they must’ve rebuilt it. But she burned it so we could get out.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?” Isadora asked.

Ignoring her for the moment, Duncan turned to Klaus. “Go back up the stairwell, and go straight until you get to the Rainbow Room. Then keep going left. Okay? You’ll be out in a few minutes, we’ll probably get there first.” Klaus glanced from the map to Duncan, and then slowly nodded. Duncan quietly watched him for a moment, and then said, his voice breaking, “Don’t you dare die. Okay? Promise me you’ll come back.”

Klaus stared at him for a moment, looking incredibly upset. He opened his mouth, as if to say something, but before he could, Carmelita suddenly turned and hugged him, burying her face in his side. Klaus froze up a moment, and as he did, Isadora dragged Duncan over, and the two of them hugged him, too, and Fiona ran over as fast as she could. They only embraced for a moment, and after they all pulled away, Fiona also said, “You’re coming back, alright? You’re not allowed to die on us.”

“No dying, got it.” Klaus said quietly.

They jumped as Moxie then said, “That goes for you, too, Haines.”

“I’ll make an attempt.”

“Kellar,” Moxie said, “If you die, I will find a way to bring you back to life, kicking and screaming, just so I can kill you again.”

“Well,” Kellar said, “In that case, same to you. Don’t provoke these kids into murdering you, and don’t get ripped apart.”

“And don’t let this kid get hurt.”

“I won’t.” Kellar turned, giving Klaus a look. “Kid, listen, I’m going to protect you best I can, okay?”

“I’ll be the one killing those things.”

“ _Only_ if necessary.” Kellar glanced at the door. “We’ll need to hurry. We want to get out of here as fast as possible, before those things find you.”

“Or before Quigley wakes up.” Isadora whispered, gripping a bit more tightly onto Duncan.

“Wait, you wanna explain why he can’t wake up?” Moxie glanced towards them. “Is he okay? Is something wrong with him?”

“We’ll explain in a minute.” Fiona said quickly. She turned to Klaus. “And you remember your self-defense stuff?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Kla…” Klaus glanced down towards Sunny again, and he picked her up, hugging her tight. “Redes,” she muttered, which meant, _“Please come back.”_

“Of course I will.” Klaus said. “I’m coming back for you.”

He took a deep breath, and then turned to Duncan, who finally managed to pull himself away from Isadora. They shared a quick look, and then Klaus quietly passed Sunny over to him, and turned towards Kellar.

“Let’s go.”

 

The two stayed silent most of the way, desperately not wanting to attract attention. Kellar had a flashlight with him, which he only turned on in the darkest rooms, and once they reached the stairwell.

As they climbed down, Klaus finally whispered, “So, you’re with Ms Mallahan?”

“Ms Mallahan?” Kellar laughed slightly. “You don’t have to call her that, it’s just Moxie.”

“I don’t want to be rude.”

“Being rude is the least of our problems right now. But, yes, I’m working with her.”

“Are you, like, an assistant, or a partner-”

“I’m a typist who’d honestly rather be here than back home.” Kellar paused, as they reached the bottom of the staircase. “Well, maybe not _here_ specifically. This is kind of a death trap.”

“What’s wrong with home?”

“Adult life sucks.”

“My life sucks, too.”

“Yeah, kinda figured.” Kellar paused outside a door. “Alright, kid, we just have to go in and find the computers, okay? Stick by me, don’t wander off.”

“Not exactly a good time to wander.”

“And if I say to run, you run, okay?”

Klaus hesitantly nodded, and Kellar slowly opened the door. He flinched a bit, and said, “Okay, bodies on the floor. Stay as close as you can, those things might still be here.”

Klaus did move closer to Kellar, but as they walked into the room, he kept looking around for any signs of movement, any at all. He’d have to be the one to fight, he knew that; he’d killed one of these monsters before, he could do it again. He just had to step over everything Kellar did, while trying very hard not to look down.

The room was filled with computers and files, but Kellar directed Klaus towards something on the far wall. They walked over, and Kellar managed to find a wall of large switches. He grabbed onto one, flipping it up, and Klaus thought he heard some distant noise. Kellar flipped two more, and once he hit the last one, the lights came on.

“Thank fuck.” Kellar muttered under his breath. “Onto the computers.”

Klaus quickly followed him as they ran past a wall of files, rushing to a computer that Kellar quickly flipped on. He started typing as fast as he could, his fingers flying across the keyboard faster than Klaus could’ve thought possible. He stayed silent, wondering if he should be doing something to help.  

Wait… he _could_ do something to help.

Klaus shut his eyes, clenching his fists and humming a little as Kellar finally reached the Door Access section. He slowly clicked the option to open all doors, smiling slightly once he got it done. “Okay, kid.” he said quickly. “Let’s get the hell out of here. Better hope your friend’s directions were accurate.”

He turned, slightly shocked to see the teenager looking almost eerily calm. “You okay, Klaus?”

“Fine.” Klaus said quietly. “We can get out if we hurry.”

“Your nose is bleeding, are you okay?”

“I’m okay, but we need to go before the creatures can find us.”

 

As soon as the lights came on, Moxie said, “Alright, kids, we’re going to run.”

She raced over to Quigley, who was still laying, unconscious, on the table. She picked him up, and Isadora quickly asked, “Are you sure you don’t want me to hold him?”

“It’ll be okay,” Moxie assured her. “I can carry him.”

“If you hurt him-” Fiona began.

“That won’t happen.” Moxie said. “Who’s best at defense? Can they fight well? Have you fought these things before?”

Fiona said, “For your first question, probably Sunny, honestly, and she’s good, but she shouldn’t be anywhere near them.”

“Hey!” Sunny called from Duncan’s arms, ignoring the fact he was holding her as tight as he could.

“Okay, then, we’re going to have to hope we don’t run into anything.” Moxie said. “If we do, Fiona, try any poison you can. Who’s the worst at defense?”

“Duncan.” said Isadora and Carmelita simultaneously.

“That’d be me.” Duncan said.

“Stay to the middle of the group. If anything happens, I’m handing your brother over to whoever can carry him and holding them off. Okay?”

Duncan nodded quickly.

“We’ll wait outside for Kellar and Klaus, but if they don’t come, we have a rendezvous point.”

“We’re not leaving Klaus.” Fiona said.

“We definitely won’t.” Moxie assured her. “But we have to move, okay?”

They nodded, and Carmelita opened the door for them as they all rushed into the hall.

 

“Stop.”

Kellar halted, turning towards the young boy at his side. Klaus had his eyes shut, and he looked lost in thought.

“Klaus? Are you-”

“We need to hide.” Klaus said. “Now.”

He grabbed onto Kellar’s hand, and after a moment, Kellar nodded, and dragged him across the hall towards a door. He checked inside, then pushed Klaus in first. “Closet. Can we stay here?”

“Probably.”

Kellar shut the door behind them, and then leaned against it, listening. Klaus pressed up against it, too, and after a few moments, they heard the scrape of claws against the floor. Kellar stiffened, but Klaus just shut his eyes, waiting. He wondered if he was too relaxed, but… no, no, that thing would just pass them by, so long as they didn’t make any noise.

They were completely frozen for what felt like forever, until Klaus finally whispered, “We’re good, but we have to run.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Klaus paused. “I have extrasensory perception, and so does Sunny. We can just… tell things. We have to go now.”

“Stay next to me.” Kellar said quietly. “If those things come-”

“I’ll throw them across the room and break their necks.”

“You’ll _run_ and do your best to stay alive.”

Klaus sighed. He wanted to argue, but he knew they couldn’t stay here long. “Alright.”

They cautiously stepped into the hall, and Klaus said, “Now we just have to get to the door, and we’re out.”

“You can sense things, you said?”

“Yeah.”

As they started to walk, Kellar said, “Are Moxie and your friends okay?”

Klaus shut his eyes, reaching to grab onto Kellar’s arm as he did, so that he would be able to keep moving without seeing. “Yes. They’re almost out.”

“And you’re sure?”

“Yes.” Klaus said. He opened his eyes, and they started to run. “Did… did your friends have perception?”

“What?”

“Lemony and Ellington?”

“Uh, I don’t- I’m not sure. Honestly, they didn’t tell us-”

“Wait!”

Klaus froze again, and Kellar quickly followed suite. And then they heard the scraping of claws behind them. Klaus looked around first, to see the small Monster turn the bend, stopping to stare for a moment.

In a flash, Klaus raised his hand. The creature was thrown back several feet, and Klaus quickly said, “Change of plan! Run!”

 

Once they were outside the door, Moxie said, “I can steal one of their vans, we’ll all fit. Do you want to wait here, or go get it-”

“You can get it, we’ll be fine here.” Fiona said.

“I’m not leaving you alone.”

“It’s not like we’ll run.”  Isadora said bitterly. “We’re not leaving without Klaus-”

“It’s not about you _running,_ it’s about the fact the creatures from the Gate are running amok and could kill you.”

Fiona and Carmelita shared a confused glance, and after a moment, Fiona said, “You should probably get Quigley out of here… take one of us with you, the rest of us will wait for Klaus and your friend.”

“I can take Sunny-” Moxie began.

“No!” Duncan held the toddler tighter. “She stays with me!”

“It’s safer with-”

“Klaus trusted me with her!”

“Frater!” Sunny added. _“And I want to wait for my brother!”_

Moxie took a deep breath. “Okay. Do you want to come with me, too?”

“We’re waiting for Klaus!”

“You should take Carmelita.” Isadora said.

“I’m not going anywhere!” Carmelita said.

“You’re the best of us at breaking into cars if need be,” Isadora stated, “You’re not the best at self-defense, so you should be with someone who’s a bit better, and if she tries anything, you can just talk her down.”

“I mean…” Carmelita glanced towards the door. “I guess…”

“Just go.” Fiona said, grabbing her hand and giving it a quick squeeze. “We’ll be right here.”

“If you-”

“We’ll be fine. Just go.”

Carmelita hesitantly nodded, then turned to Moxie. “Where’re the vans?”

“I’ll show you.”

“You won’t let anything happen to Quigley?” Isadora asked, her eyes darting to her unconscious triplet.

“Nothing will happen to him.” Moxie assured her. “I promise.”

Hesitantly, Isadora nodded, and Moxie and Carmelita ran off.

Fiona turned back to the door, and they all stood in silence for a bit. Isadora grabbed onto Duncan’s arm, and Sunny rested her head on his shoulder. After a moment, Fiona wandered over, too, grabbing Isadora’s hand.

“Can we trust her?” Isadora asked quietly.

“We better hope.” Fiona responded.

They fell silent again, and then they heard a distant screech and instantly tensed up.

“What the-” Duncan began.

Then, as they watched through the glass doors, they saw Kellar and Klaus rushing into the room, running as fast as they could.

“Klaus!” Duncan shouted, and he broke away from Isadora, starting to run forwards.

“Duncan, wait!” Fiona called, running to grab his arm. “Don’t go in-”

They heard the screech again, much closer. Klaus stopped running, turning around and raising his arms, and Kellar stopped to watch him, reaching out to grab his arm and drag him back slightly; Klaus just shook him off, focusing hard.

“What’s he doing?” Isadora asked worriedly. “What-”

“Kla!” Sunny called.

They heard a low rumble, and Kellar grabbed Klaus’s arm again. Sunny looked towards Duncan, and said, “Pugnamus!” which probably meant, _“We have to go in! Take me in!”_

“I…” Duncan hesitated.

“Bella!” _“I’ll be okay, we have to go in!”_

Hesitantly, Duncan turned towards Isadora and Fiona, and said, “Come on, then!”

“Duncan!” Fiona yelled, and Duncan ran towards the doors, pushing one open and sliding to a stop just beyond the doorway.

“Klaus!”

Klaus turned, surprised, and Duncan froze, upon seeing a small Monster pressed  against the wall. “The _fuck-”_

“Duncan, go!” Klaus said, turning back to the creature and flicking his hand, causing it to rise up slightly, and then slam against the wall again. “Get Sunny out of here!”

“We’re not going without you!”  

The doors opened again, and Fiona and Isadora rushed in, stopping just beside Duncan. “Klaus, come on, let’s go!” Fiona called.

“Give me a second-”

Sunny looked up at Duncan again, and said, “Iacies,” which meant something like, _“Throw me.”_

“Wh-what?”

“Iacies!”

“Sunny, I am _not-”_

Duncan realized what was going on when he heard another screech.

Klaus jumped, turning to see a second Monster emerge from a doorway, running. Kellar grabbed him and pushed him back, and Duncan said, “Sunny, if you die, I’m gonna kill you.”

“Inteso.” _“Understood.”_

Duncan carefully tossed the toddler, and as soon as she hit the ground, she rolled to her feet and threw herself at the Monster, which had almost reached her brother. Klaus froze in place, staring in horror at his sister. She let out a small shout as she grabbed the creature’s leg, and as they all watched, she managed to lift it over her shoulder and throw it at the second monster. The second they collided, she raced back, running into Klaus’s arms. Her brother lifted her up, and Kellar pushed them ahead towards the doors.

“Go, go, _go!”_

They raced out the door, and as they ran out the road, a van pulled out, sharply stopping right in front of them.

Moxie leaned out the window, and yelled, “Get in!”

Kellar directed the children to the back doors, throwing them open. Fiona climbed in first, before reaching to help in Isadora, as Carmelita ran over from a corner of the van and pulled Klaus up, and then pulled him and Sunny into a hug as Duncan finally got inside. Kellar shut the doors, running up to the shotgun seat. Once he sat down, Moxie pulled him into a quick hug, and then pulled away and hit the gas.

“We’re going to break several driving laws,” Moxie called into the back of the van, “So hold on!”


	34. The Stain’d Crew tries to parent Six Runaway Children

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR**

_The Stain’d Crew tries to parent Six Runaway Children_

 

Klaus sat in the corner of the van, keeping Sunny in his lap and holding Duncan with one arm; the other boy was shaking and keeping his head buried in Klaus’s shoulder. Isadora sat beside her brother, her arm also around him, leaning onto him and occasionally whispering something vaguely comforting, her other arm holding an unconscious Quigley. Fiona sat beside inbetween them and Carmelita, leaning against the wall and playing with her shirt fabric, while the other girl nervously braided her hair back.

Duncan had started getting nervous the second they started driving; not only were the day’s experiences quite terrifying, but they were driving very fast, none of the kids were really sure which direction they were heading, and Duncan’s headphones were still in his bag at the house in the woods. He was barely holding it together as was, and Klaus and Isadora were both very worried he’d completely lose it if either of them moved.

Quietly, Isadora whispered, “It’s okay, Duncan. Just breathe. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One…”

“We’re almost there!” Moxie called from the front seat, turning slightly. “Do you need anything?”

“Just keep driving.” Fiona said.

“We don’t have any clothes.” Carmelita murmured.

“Sonticus?” Sunny asked. _“Is that really important?”_

Carmelita shuffled uncomfortably, before saying, “Kinda. I don’t like dressing in hospital stuff, even if it’s just scrubs…”

They all fell silent, and Isadora said, “When we park the car, you can have my jacket, Mel.”

“I like my clothes, though.”

“Maybe we can get our stuff soon.” Fiona said quietly. “Don’t worry, Mel.”

“Not my stuff. I had my bag with me, they confiscated it.”

They all stiffened a little. Then, Isadora said, “You can just steal some of mine. My bag’s still at that house.”

“I-”

The car slowed, and Duncan let out a sigh of relief. They all froze up, though, when they heard Kellar say, “Aw, shit.”

“What’s going on?” Fiona asked, as they parked. “Are we under attack?”

“No.” Moxie sighed. “Well, you’re not. Me and Kellar are about to get a mouthful.”

“What’s that-” Isadora began.

Moxie and Kellar jumped out of the car before she could finish her question, and after a moment, Moxie opened the doors for them. Duncan scampered out quickly, surprising everyone by giving the woman a hug.

“Don’t ever take me driving again.” he said breathlessly.

“Um… okay.”

The rest of them climbed out, with Klaus carrying Sunny, and Isadora refusing to let anyone else carry Quigley. After they all climbed out, the children looked up ahead, and saw what Moxie and Kellar had; two more adults were running out from the backdoor of some diner they’d parked behind, not looking very pleased. Moxie sighed, and she and Kellar gestured for the kids to follow them.

They met about halfway to the building, and the children were very shocked to see a tall woman instantly grab Moxie, pulling her closer and checking her over, as if for injuries. A man did the same to Kellar, and then the woman said, “For the love of _fuck,_ Mox, what the _hell_ were you thinking?”

“Shut _up,_ Cleo.” Moxie huffed. “We’re fine.”

“Are you injured?” the man asked.

“We’re not kids, Jake,” Kellar said. “We’re okay.”

“We were doing our _job.”_ Moxie said.

“You were supposed to be back _hours_ ago! What the hell _happened?”_

“Gate opened, monsters attacked, blackout and lockdown.” Moxie shrugged. “We’re all fine.”

_“What?”_

“Excuse me!” Fiona called, attracting the adults’ attention. “Who the hell are you?”

The new adults looked over the confused teens, their eyes landing on Klaus for a while. Then, Cleo said, “Oh, God, you’re the kids.”

“Pip and Squeak said you were getting them.” Jake muttered. “But… wow, there sure are a lot of you. Are any of you hurt?”

“What happened to your brother?” Cleo asked, looking at Quigley.

“Who _are_ you?” Carmelita asked, grabbing onto Fiona’s arm.

The adults glanced at each other, as Moxie said, “Uh, this is Cleo and Jake Knight. They’re our friends. Where are Pip and Squeak?”

“Inside.” Cleo said. “Why don’t we all go in and figure out what’s going on?”

“Where are we?” Klaus asked.

“God,” Jake turned to Moxie and Kellar. “Didn’t you tell them anything?”

“We were in a bit of a hurry.” Kellar said.

“We’re at Hungry’s.” Carmelita answered Klaus. “I never went here, but the kids at school said it was always closed.”

“Well, it’s not closed _now_.” Jake said. “Come on in, kids.”

 

They met Pip and Squeak inside- two men only slightly younger than Moxie and Kellar. Pip looked a bit peeved, saying, “We’re not eight years old anymore, you can call us Pecuchet and Bouvard,” while Squeak just shrugged and said, “Stop being a stick-in-the-mud, Pip, nobody cares.” The two of them were currently sitting with Kellar in a booth, going over a bunch of files and papers.

The kids all sat in one booth under the window, after resting Quigley onto a seat. Isadora, Duncan and Klaus all squished together on one side, while Fiona and Carmelita sat on the other. Jake was trying to make them hot chocolate, and Sunny had insisted on going to help, and so she sat at the counter with him, babbling something about a cookbook she’d read, while Jake nodded along.

“Can you all understand her?” Fiona asked.

“A bit.” Jake shrugged. “I’m assuming _that_ meant ‘cinnamon’, right, Sunny?”

“Ye.”

“I’m honestly guessing on a lot of it.” Cleo shrugged.

“And the rest of us are a bit in the dark.” Moxie said, from her seat at the counter; Pip had brought her a typewriter, which she was hurriedly writing something on.

“Do you kids need anything?” Cleo asked.

“We’ll be okay.” Klaus said, glancing over at Sunny.

“You don’t have any extra clothes, do you?” Carmelita asked.

“Afraid not.” Cleo responded. “Moxie, you didn’t get them clothes?”

“I found out they were here _this morning!”_ Moxie yelled. “I’ve been at the Lab since then!”

“Don’t blame Moxie.” Duncan said quickly. “It’s our fault, we left our bags-”

“Oh, buddy,” Cleo rolled her eyes, “I’m not blaming her. But she can sometimes forget that people have feelings.”

“Not true!”

“Okay.” Cleo crossed her arms. “What happened at the Lab again?”

Moxie bit her lip. “I’m not entirely sure. Something happened with the tunnels I told you about the other day, and a bunch of those creatures came through. Killed almost everyone, I think. We only got out cause Kellar managed to get the lights back on.”

“And I’m only alive because Klaus managed to figure out when those things were nearby.” Kellar said, shooting the boy a quick look.

“You’re Klaus?” Cleo asked. He nodded. “And you’re Beatrice’s son?”

“Yeah.” he was looking a bit uncomfortable. “And Sunny’s my sister. Uh, these are Duncan and Isadora, that’s their brother Quigley, and this is Fiona and Carmelita.”

“We have a few stolen files on you.” Cleo admitted. “But they weren’t super informative.”

“What do you need to know?” Fiona asked quietly.

“That’s not important right now.” Moxie said. “What’s important is you’re not about to die.”

“We are, though!” Duncan said. “Quigley-”

“Hot chocolate’s done.” Jake said quietly. He carried a tray over to the table, as Cleo went and picked up Sunny, dropping her on a chair beside Carmelita.

“What’s in this?” Fiona asked cautiously.

“Shut up, it’s not like they could poison you.” Carmelita said, taking a mug.

“They could poison _you.”_

“Nobody’s poisoning anybody.” Jake said. “But you kids probably need something to warm up with.”

“We don’t have time.” Duncan insisted. “We need to call the military or something. Those monsters are wreaking havoc. What happens if they get out of the Lab?”

“They could find us once Quigley wakes up.” Isadora said numbly. “He’s connected to them.”

“I’m sorry,” Moxie said sharply, “He’s _what?”_

“Well…” Isadora glanced at the other kids, before saying, “For starters, we hadn’t seen Quigley in a year. He was-”

“He was the one trapped in the Gate, right?” Kellar asked. They gave him a look, and he said, “We infiltrated the Department of Energy _months_ ago, kids. You think we never picked up on that?”

“Well, yes. He was trapped there.” Isadora said. “But he escaped separately, and we… have no idea how or when or… or for how long he was out-”

“Or if he was with Violet.” Klaus said quietly.

“Your sister?” Moxie asked.

Klaus nodded. “She… we last saw her… she… I-I’m sorry, we-”

Duncan put a hand over his, and Isadora said, “Well… Quigley showed up yesterday- or the day before? I dunno, but he didn’t seem to remember the last year, and he started losing memories rapidly, he said that… something from the Upside Down possessed him.”

“The other side of the Gate?” Cleo asked.

“Yeah.” Isadora nodded. “He called it the ‘Shadow.’ Said it…  ‘got’ him. The doctors said it was like a virus. He seemed to connect to it, could see what it saw, feel what it felt- and some of the Monsters, too, I think.”

Moxie paused. “Those Monsters all showed up at once- were they provoked?”

“A- a bunch of soldiers went into the tunnels.” Carmelita said. “It… Quigley, he- he kinda got-”

“He’s possessed.” Isadora stated, looking over at her brother. “The thing’s controlling him now. We knocked him out so it couldn’t spy through him.”

“Well. That’s cheery.” Jake said sarcastically.

“Do you know how to reverse it?” Moxie asked. “Do you know how it started? Do you know-”

“We don’t know much else.” Klaus said.

Moxie slowly pushed her typewriter away, thinking. “It’s just… if the Shadow thing’s connected to those creatures, too, that would explain why they all showed up to Hawkins Lab at once. It could be inside everything, using them to deal with threats.”

“Like a hivemind?” Cleo asked.

“A what?” Fiona said.

“A collective consciousness.” Klaus said quickly. “Like… a bunch of people all connected to each other.”

“Like us?” Carmelita asked.

“Uh… maybe?” Klaus said. “I mean, we’re not sharing _thoughts,_ just bursts of pain on occasion.”

“What was that?” Pip asked, looking up from the files a moment.

“Not important right now.” Klaus said.

“What’s important is that if this is a hivemind,” Duncan said, “The Shadow would be in control of it, right?”

“Like a Mind Flayer?” Squeak asked.

“What?” Carmelita asked, but Isadora and Duncan perked up.

“Yeah.” Isadora said, a bit amazed. “Exactly like that.”

“Klaus, translate?” Carmelita asked.

“I’m a bit lost, too.” Klaus admitted, as Sunny also shrugged.

“It’s from Dungeons and Dragons.” Duncan said. “We used to play with Mother and Father.”

“Is that the roleplay game we played while you two were finishing College?” Moxie glanced at Pip and Squeak.

“Yeah, but it’s cooler now.” Pip said.

“Do you guys have the original stuff?” Duncan asked. “From the 70s?”

“Um, we can talk about that later.” Fiona said quickly. “What’s the Mind Flayer?”

“Creature from an unknown dimension.” Squeak explained. “It takes over the minds of others in order to build an army and conquer dimensions.”

“Okay, well, this isn’t a kid’s game,” Moxie said sharply, “This is real life.”

“It’s an analogy, Mox.” Pip said.

“Fine.” Moxie crossed her arms. “Suppose this Shadow is a Mind Flamer-”

“Flayer!” Squeak corrected.

“What does it want?”

“To conquer.” Duncan stated. “It views other races as inferior to itself.”

“Its goal is too spread and take over every dimension.” Isadora said.

“So it’s gonna destroy the world?” Carmelita asked. “Great. _Great.”_

“Wait.” Klaus paused, the wheels in his head turning. “Wait, if this thing is the head of the hivemind-”

“Which is probably is.” Fiona said. “It makes sense.”

“-then it controls the army?”

“Yes.” Duncan said.

“So if we kill it,” Klaus said, “We kill the army?”

“Theoretically.” Isadora shrugged.

“Okay,” Cleo said, “How do we kill it?”

“Good question.” Isadora said. “Seeing as it probably doesn’t follow the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, though…”

“So we’re fucked?” Moxie asked.

“Moxie, there are children present.” Jake said.

“Sunny’s heard worse.” Fiona said.

“I was talking about Pip and Squeak.”

“Fuck off!” Pip yelled.

“We’re adults, too!” Squeak added.

“We’re not fucked,” Cleo said, holding up her hands to stop the argument, “We just need to find out how to kill it.”

“I can call in some military backup.” Moxie suggested. “I know a guy.”

“You always know a guy.” Kellar said. “I can go over the shit we stole from the Lab, see if there’s anything on the Gate we’ve got.”

“Those’ll be in the files we have hidden at Black Cat.” Moxie said. “You gonna take the stolen van?”

“We can drive him.” Pip said. “We can help gather what we need.”

“Yeah,” Squeak said, glancing over at the kids, “We could pick up your stuff on the way. You said you left it at a house?”

“Um…” Fiona began. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s at the edge of town. Almost in the woods. Looks like nobody’s touched it in forever.”

“Could you point it out on a map?”

“Yeah.” Fiona nodded.

Pip moved over, pulling a map of Hawkins from his jacket pocket. Fiona paused, then pointed to a spot. “About there.”

“We can definitely stop there.” Pip nodded. “You kids stay here.”

“We can go-” Fiona began.

“No, no. You kids have been in enough trouble today.” Jake said quickly. “Do you need any food? Did they feed you over there?”

“Not really.” Duncan admitted.

“But we’ll be okay.” Isadora said.

“Yeah, we can go without food for a while.” Klaus said.

That did not seem to relax the adults. “Well,” Moxie finally said, “Jake, Cleo, you try to make them eat. I’ll go make a call in the back.”

“Wait, don’t you-” Cleo began, but Moxie had already scampered off to find a phone. After a moment, Kellar, Pip and Squeak left, too, and the kids stared up at Jake and Cleo.

“What can we do?” Duncan asked. “How can we help?”

“You kids don’t have to do anything.” Jake said. “You’ve been through a lot-”

“Bullshit. We want to help.” Fiona said.

“That thing’s got our brother. We want to kill it.” Isadora said.

“We’ll figure out how.” Cleo said. “Don’t worry. Do you need anything right now?”

“We’re fine.” Fiona said.

Jake and Cleo glanced at each other, and Cleo said, “I can try to make a few calls of my own.”

“I’ll make something for them.” Jake said. He turned to the kids, saying, “If you have to hide somewhere, we have a trapdoor that leads to the basement in the corner, next to the old jukebox, and that door over there leads to the backroom. And if you need anything else, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“And I’ll be in the back.” Cleo said. “Moxie’s in that room there.”

“Do you want someone to stay with you?” Jake asked.

“We’ll be okay.” Isadora said. “We’ll watch Quigley.”

“Just tell us if you-”

“We got it.” Fiona said.

“Thank you.” Klaus said quietly.

After a moment, Jake and Cleo nodded and left. Sunny watched after Jake a moment, wondering if she should ask if she could go to the kitchen, too, and help make dinner.

“Do you think they want something from us?” Carmelita asked, once they were alone.

“I think they want to help.” Isadora said quietly. “But there’s no way the military’ll be able to take this thing out. You guys seriously think _guns_ are gonna work?”

“They didn’t work against the Monsters,” Klaus said quietly, “I doubt they’d work against the Shadow.”

“Then how the hell are we going to kill it?” Fiona asked. “I mean, Duncan could read its mind and find out what poisons would work-”

“Yeah, no.” Duncan said. “Last time I tried to read a Monster’s mind, Isadora and  I passed the fuck out.”

“I know.” Fiona groaned, leaning against the wall. “But we need some kind of plan. We have no idea how to kill this thing. We don’t even know what we’re _dealing_ with, really.”

“No.” Klaus said quietly. “But he does.”

They all froze a moment, then followed his gaze to the booth where Quigley had been placed.

“He won’t tell us anything.” Isadora said numbly.

“Yeah, I thought we couldn’t trust him.” Carmelita said. “He’s a spy for the Shadow.”

“Yeah…” Klaus narrowed his eyes. “But he can’t spy if he doesn’t know where he is.”


	35. Duncan and Klaus have a chat with Moxie

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE**

_Duncan and Klaus have a chat with Moxie_

 

“We just need you to distract Moxie for a few minutes.” Isadora said. “How hard could that be?”

Duncan bounced his leg nervously, watching Fiona pick up Quigley. “Are we sure this is a good idea?”

“It’s the best we’ve got.” Klaus said. “Sunny, how’re we looking?”

Sunny walked out of the backroom Jake had pointed out. “Latens!” she called, which meant, _“It doesn’t have any windows, and it’s dark enough that Quigley will be disoriented. However, if the door opens, he’d be able to see the diner windows, meaning he could get a general idea of where we are.”_

“We’ll just have to make sure the door stays closed, then.” Fiona said. “Carmelita, you wanted to be lookout?”

“I can probably convince the adults to leave you alone.” Carmelita shrugged. “But you’re sure you don’t want me to just convince Quigley to tell the truth?”

“We don’t know what’ll happen when your abilities connect with the Monster’s.” Fiona said.

“Yeah, Duncan was right.” Klaus said. “Last time we tried that, it didn’t end well.”

“So you want me to…” Duncan asked again.

“Distract Moxie.” Isadora said. “Ask her questions about journalism or whatever. Klaus’ll come with you, ask about his Mother. That’ll buy us enough time to set up.”

“And why are we-”

“Jake and Cleo are far enough away they won’t figure out what we’re doing until we’ve already started.” Isadora explained, watching as Carmelita moved to open the door for Fiona. “But we need to be able to tie up Quigley, so he can’t escape. We’ll need a chair and rope and shit, so we’re going to dig through the cars. And we don’t want Moxie to catch all this, she’ll try to stop us.”

“She might-” Duncan began.  

“We’ve got to do this, we can’t risk anyone stopping us.” Fiona said. “Just talk to her for a bit, we’ll get everything. Isadora will come get you when we’re ready.”

Duncan sighed. “Okay. Okay, we can… we can do that, yeah.”

“Sunny, stay with the others.” Klaus said quickly. “And-”

“Tutela.” Sunny groaned. _“I get it! Just go.”_

“Alright.” Klaus said. “Alright, let’s go… talk to Moxie Mallahan.”

 

Duncan went in first, Klaus close at his heels. Moxie was on the phone, and she briefly glanced over at them, holding up a hand to stop them from speaking. “No, this isn’t a prank, I’m serious. People are _dead._ I don’t _care-_ no, I don’t know how many people are there- yes. Yes, the number I gave you. I will _be_ here.”

She hung up after a second, crossing her arms and groaning.

“They didn’t believe you?” Duncan asked, as Klaus subtly kicked the door shut.

“We’ll see.” Moxie said, moving to sit on top of a table; this room looked vaguely like an office of some kind. Duncan nervously found a chair to curl up on, and Klaus sat  beside him, crossing his legs and fiddling with the edge of his shirt fabric. Moxie watched them a second, and then said, “Pip and Squeak’ll probably be back soon with your clothes. You won’t have to wear those scrubs anymore. I’m sure they’re not… comfortable.”

“They’re okay.” Duncan shrugged.

“They’re not great.” Klaus said quietly. “Too much like the… the hospital gown.”

Moxie bit her lip. “Yeah, I- I did some reading on the shit they pulled with their- their experiments. It sounds… bad.”

“I wouldn’t know much about…” Klaus shut his eyes. “Neither of us were there- I mean, I was only at the Lab an hour or so, they came to rescue me, and Violet…”

He cut himself off, and Duncan quickly put a hand on his arm. “Violet was there longer.” he explained. “So was Quigley. They’re Seven and Ten, did you find stuff on them?”

“A bit.” Moxie said quietly. “It was… not an easy read, I’m not going to lie.”

“Did they do anything… really bad to them?” Klaus asked.

“They did a lot of things.” Moxie said. “Stuff you probably don’t want to hear about.” She paused. “Why are you in here? Did you guys need anything?”

“No, the girls are just- talking.” Duncan said.

“We were just…” Klaus hesitated. “I wanted to, uh, to ask… to ask about…”

“About your Mother?” Moxie guessed. Klaus glanced away and nodded. She turned to Duncan, and said, “And you’re here for…?”

“Um…” Duncan hesitated. “I’m here for Klaus. And… uh, because… journalism… stuff…”

Moxie smiled slightly. “Well… alright, then. Klaus, your… I do admit I didn’t see your Mother as much as I did Lemony and Ellington, but… well, sometimes she’d tag along with them because Lemony’s siblings had something else to do. I think she did like us, really. She liked messing with the jukebox with us, and she liked to steal some of my notes and read over them.” She smiled slightly. “I hated that so much.”

“Did she…” Klaus bit his lip. “Did she ever show you her powers?”

“No.” Moxie sighed. “We didn’t find out about all that til it was very, very late.”

“Really?”

Moxie didn’t speak for a moment, instead drumming her fingers on the table and thinking. Then, she said, “Well. We probably… you see, Kellar and I met Lemony and Ellington at the Library, they liked all the same books we did, we exchanged recommendations, and before you knew it, they were following us around like little shadows every weekend. Lemony ended up befriending Pip and Squeak, and Jake and Cleo started hanging out with us after we started meeting here- Jake worked here while his Aunt owned the place, and Cleo was always visiting him, and they kept telling us to stop breaking the jukebox and throwing food at rude customers.”

“That sounds like fun, though.” Duncan said.

“It was. And… well, we knew they had a strict foster father. But we didn’t… we _never_ guessed that anything like _that_ could be happening to them. We should’ve… we should’ve assumed something bad. Looking back on it, there were so many signs we just _missed._ They’d have bruises they didn’t want to explain, and we just assumed they were clumsy. We just assumed their foster dad was overprotective, and that’s why they only went out on occasion. We…”

She took a deep breath, and then said, “When we were fourteen, Lemony ran away. Told Beatrice and Ellington to go ahead and meet us, he’d catch up later. Instead, he stole someone’s wallet and took a bus out of state. And as soon as we found that out, his siblings and Beatrice, they just… vanished. Stopped coming to town. We only saw Ellington every now and again, and she never spoke to us. We…” She clenched her fist. “We should’ve thought something was wrong, we should’ve suspected… but we were mad. We thought Lemony had left us, we thought Ellington didn’t like us anymore, we… we should’ve done better.”

“You were kids.” Duncan said quietly, squeezing Klaus’s hand. “It’s not like… it’s not like you _could_ have…”

“How did you find out?” Klaus asked.

“It wasn’t til we were adults. I was already out of state, I got an internship at a newspaper.” Moxie said. “And Kellar got a letter. Lem had managed to sneak it out of the Lab to send to him, it was… it explained everything. About what happened to him in there, about being an experiment, about his abilities… Kellar came to me, and I didn’t know if I could believe it at first, but we did some research and it started to check out… anyway, he… we… he asked us to help him escape. So they all went to Hawkins- Jake managed to smuggle him stuff he needed through the back, Kellar and Cleo managed to get the fence open, Pip and Squeak drove them out- Ellington went with him, apparently, but he’d said something about hoping more of them could go… they were supposed to take a bus to me, I was going to hide them, but they never showed up. We didn’t know if the Department of Energy intercepted them, or if they just decided to ditch us, but… well, we kept looking into the Lab, when we could.”

“They just vanished?” Klaus asked.

Moxie shrugged. “And it’s been… about fifteen years since then, maybe a little over. We haven’t heard from them since… they could be _dead,_ for all we know… but, yeah, we tried to investigate further, whenever we had time, but… about four years later, your Mother called me, Klaus. She asked if Lemony was with us. When I said he wasn’t, I… I asked about the Lab, and she told me, straight-up, not to worry about it, that she’d burned it to the ground and I shouldn’t think about it anymore.”

“Maybe she thought it was gone for good?” Klaus said quietly. “After we escaped.”

“Probably not.” Moxie sighed, “She probably just didn’t want us to get ourselves killed. Honestly, we probably would’ve. We were young, reckless idiots. And we… believed her. We shouldn’t have… we should’ve at least tried to contact her, tried to find out what happened, but we just… moved on. Tried to find Lemony and Ellington, tried to forget about the Department of Energy for a bit, tried to have _lives_ … and then you called, Duncan.”

“I’m sorry.” Duncan said quietly.

“Don’t you dare be sorry about this.” Moxie said.

“But you’re in danger, and you’ve spent the last year-”

“Don’t be _sorry_ that you asked for help.” Moxie assured him. “You couldn’t have done this alone, through no fault of your own. Okay? We’re all here to make sure nothing else happens to you.”

Klaus and Duncan stared at her in slight surprise for a moment, and then Klaus said, “Would… if my sister’s alive, could you find her?”

“We can certainly try-” Moxie began.

“Of course Violet’s alive.” Duncan said quickly, turning to look at Klaus in surprise. “Of course she’s okay. Why wouldn’t she be?”

Klaus bit his lip again. “Quigley couldn’t remember her, but he thought he did something to her. He grabbed the radio, he- he said he was sorry, he had her _ribbon-”_

“That doesn’t mean anything!”

“Klaus,” Moxie said carefully, “We’ll see what we can do, okay? But I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

Before they could say anything else, Isadora poked the door open, peering through. “Hey, Dun? Yeah, we need you two back. We need a tiebreaker in our argument about which poison is deadlier, Fi won’t tell us.”

“Klaus’ll know.” Duncan said quietly. He paused, wondering if he should look more reluctant about leaving. “Could I stay a bit-?”

“Moxie probably needs to call more people.” Isadora said insistently, doing a much better acting job than her brother. “Don’t bother her.”

“It’s fine.” Moxie shrugged. “You all probably want to know… stuff.”

“We can go.” Klaus said. “We just… tell us when someone calls you back?”

“Of course, yeah. Good luck.”

Klaus stiffened. “With what?”

“Your poison argument?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

Moxie glanced between the teens for a moment. “Is something going on?”

“Uh…” Duncan said.

“No?” Klaus said.

Moxie gave them another look, and then said, “You two are really bad at lying.”

“We’re not-” Klaus began.

Isadora groaned, and said, “God, yeah, they are.”

Moxie stood up and moved past the boys, pushing past Isadora and into the diner. Klaus and Duncan jumped to their feet, as they heard Moxie say, “Oh, what the hell?”

Isadora turned, crossing her arms and following, and hesitantly, Klaus and Duncan ran after her.

In the middle of the room, Fiona and Carmelita stood frozen, looking very much like two deer in the headlights. Fiona had an arm tangled with what looked like a clothesline, and a small box in her other hand, while Carmelita had two rolls of ducktape on her arm like a bracelet, and what looked like some kind of blanket under her other arm. Sunny was standing behind them, her small hands around a chair leg, looking ready to lift it.

“So.” Fiona said quietly. “We can explain this.”

“Okay.” Moxie crossed her arms. “Explain.” The teens glanced to each other nervously, and then Moxie said, “Wait, is that stuff from Cleo’s car? Did you break into Cleo’s car?”

“What?” Carmelita bristled slightly, “You think we don’t know how to break into cars?”

“Shut up.” Fiona muttered.  

Moxie sighed. “Look. Just… what is this for?”

After a pause, Duncan finally said, “We’re gonna interrogate Quigley.”

“You’re going to do what?”

“The rope’s to tie him up.” Isadora said, glancing at the ground. “So he can’t attack us. We’re tying him to a chair, the duct tape’s to keep it on the floor. Fiona’s gonna wake him up, and she has the syringe in case she needs to knock him out again.”

“This blanket’s to block the door with.” Fiona said, gesturing to the one Carmelita held. “This box is just of stuff I thought might be useful.”

“Okay, okay.” Moxie took a deep breath, stepping back so she could see all the teens at once. “Okay, first of all, _why_ didn’t you just _ask_ for this stuff?”

They all stared at her. “Would you have given it to us?” Isadora asked skeptically.

“Depends.” Moxie said. “You’re not gonna hurt the kid, are you?”

“Of course not!” Duncan said quickly.

“Then how are you planning to get information out of him?”

“We’ll just talk to him.” Duncan said quietly. “We can try to- to get him to tell us stuff. Like how to kill the Shadow Monster. He’s got to know, he’s connected to it now. He could tell us. He… he might still be in there.”

“He’s _got_ to still be in there.” Isadora said.

“He’s possessed by a monster, right?”

“He might be able to break through.” Fiona said.

“If Quigley tries hard enough, he can do anything.” Isadora insisted. “He’s still there.”

“This is our best bet.” Klaus said. “He’s the only one who knows anything about this Shadow.”

Moxie sighed. “I can _not_ say this is a good idea.”

“We’re not asking.” Fiona said.

“I know you’re not.” Moxie said. “Just like how I know you’re not going to stop, are you?”

They all shook their heads.

“Well.” Moxie said. “I can’t say it’s part of my moral code to interrogate a kid-”

“It’s not like we’re hurting him.” Duncan said again.

“But,” Moxie sighed, “If you’re _going_ to try and get information out of him, you should not be doing it unsupervised.”

“You probably shouldn’t be in there, he won’t know you.” Isadora said.

“Then I’ll be outside the door.” Moxie said. “And you’re telling Jake and Cleo, too.”

“Can’t you tell them?” Carmelita groaned.

“If you can convince _them,”_ Moxie said, “You can do it. _But_ if it starts to get heated, and someone’s about to get hurt-”

“We’ll stop, of course.” Duncan said.

“And if you need _anything_ -”

“We’ll handle it.” Fiona said.

“Wrong, you’ll _tell me.”_ Moxie sighed. “And, for fuck’s sake, don’t just _break into our cars.”_

“Ugh, _fine.”_ Fiona huffed.

“And don’t kill anyone.”

“Of course not!” Isadora said.

“In that case… lemme at least show you how to properly tie someone to a chair.”

 

Klaus shut the door, glancing around the room; after they’d managed to convince Jake and Cleo that _no,_ nobody was going to get hurt and _yes_ , they knew what they were doing, they’d decided that the Rainbow Room kids should be the only ones inside, which Sunny had not taken well to; she was probably sulking outside right now. The room was pretty small, though, so it was probably good that they were the only ones in; it might get too crowded otherwise.

“How’re we gonna wake him up?” Klaus asked cautiously.

“I found smelling salts in the van.” Fiona said, pulling out a bottle.

“Whoa, you coulda mentioned that!” Isadora said.

“Didn’t think it was relevant.”

“What else did you find in there?”

“Spare knives. A few dollars. Water bottle-”

“Fiona, maybe you should’ve only stolen stuff that would be useful to us _now_?” Duncan said quietly.

“You never know when we’ll have to run again.” Fiona said quietly. “Or when we’ll need weapons.”

“We don’t need them now, though?” Isadora crossed her arms, nervously glancing at her brother.

“Of course not, no.” Fiona assured her. “I’ll wake him up. Remember, try to keep him calm, and don’t let him look out the door.”

Slowly, Fiona approached Quigley, dropping down slightly to place the smelling salts under his nose.

And, faster than they would have thought, he sat up.


	36. Quigley gets Interrogated

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX**

_Quigley gets Interrogated_

 

Quigley looked around the room blankly for a moment. Klaus hesitantly stepped closer to Fiona, and Duncan grabbed onto Isadora’s arm. Quigley finally finished surveying the room, and he tried to sit up, only to look a bit confused as he couldn’t move. “What is this?” He started struggling a bit more, trying to break out of the chair. “What _is this?”_

“Quigley-” Duncan began.

“Why am I tied up?” Quigley asked, pushing against the rope.

“Quigley, hey.” Isadora said, pulling away from Duncan, and then stepping forwards and kneeling in front of her brother. “Hey. We just want to talk a second. We’re not going to hurt you, nothing’s going to-”

“Where _am I?”_ Quigley was starting to sound very pissed.

“Hey.” Duncan sat next to Isadora. “Hey, Quig, we’re trying to help, okay? We want to help you.”

“But you’re going to have to talk to us.” Isadora said.

_“Why am I tied up?”_

“Quigley-”

 _“Why am I tied up? Why am I tied up?”_ Quigley’s voice got louder, and he started thrashing at the rope. Isadora jumped forwards, grabbing him to try and hold him back, and Fiona and Klaus stepped backwards, noticing that the dim light had started to flicker. _“Let me go! Let me go! Let me GO!”_

“Quigley! Quigley,” Isadora said. “Quigley, calm down!”

 _“Let me GO! Let me go…”_ he started to calm slightly, as Isadora hugged him tighter, and Klaus and Fiona stepped back a bit more. “Let me go… let me…”

When it looked like he was calm enough, Isadora hesitantly let go, and Duncan moved a bit closer to Quigley. He met his brother’s eyes, and they stared at each other for a long while, as if they were wondering who would break first.

Then, quietly, Duncan said, “Do you remember when you broke your globe?”

“What-?” Fiona began, but Klaus but a hand on her arm and shushed her slightly.

Quigley stared blankly at Duncan, and he continued, “We were nine. You’d gotten this… this cool globe, you loved it, but Mother told you that she wouldn’t be able to replace it if it got broken, because it was expensive. You wouldn’t let any of us touch it, you just kept it on your desk and would stare at it for _hours._ The only time we ever got you to stay still.”

He smiled a little, and then said, “But… well, and one day I came home crying and I locked myself in our room so Mother and Father would stop trying to figure out what was wrong. Except you were already in there, and you wouldn’t stop bugging me until I finally showed you my favorite notebook. I’d… I’d wandered away from Father while we were waiting for Isadora to finish soccer practice and some asshole kids ripped it up. I think they’d been picking on her, too-?”

He glanced at his sister, and she nodded a little. He turned back to Quigley, and said, “But everything was ruined. All my notes from the last few months, the little sketches you’d draw for me while I wasn’t looking… they’d torn the binding, half the pages were muddy… I was distraught, Quig. And you know what you did?”

Quigley didn’t respond, so Duncan continued, “You just walked over to your globe, tossed it off the desk. It got a huge crack in it, and I was so upset, but you just walked over and hugged me. You didn’t even have to say anything, I just… I got that you didn’t want me to feel like… you were never good with words, but you wanted me to know that it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter, it was just a _thing,_ we’d just keep going. We… we kept going.”

He fell silent, still staring at Quigley, who had a distant look in his eyes. Then Isadora sat beside him, and said, “Do you remember… we were about seven years old, and I tried to run away?” Quigley slowly turned towards her. “It wasn’t for any real reason… I mean, I can’t even remember why. I think I was probably just mad at our parents for some dumb kid reason. I just remember I was upset enough to pack a bag of candy and two books and hide in the neighbor kid’s treehouse. It took you… maybe twenty minutes to find me.”

She reached over to grab onto Duncan’s hand. “I told you I wasn’t coming home, that I was going to live in the wilderness and eat bugs and get raised by raccoons. And you just said… you asked if you could come, too. I said no, you could get your own hideout. You didn’t leave, though, you just sat there and asked me about what I planned to do. Of course I didn’t have _any_ plans, but you just… you tried to help, I guess, until I got tired and forgot why I was mad and just told you I wanted to go home so you’d stop annoying me.”

She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You weren’t annoying me. I remember that. I just remember thinking that if I kept running off, you and Duncan and Mother and Father would be sad, and I wouldn’t get to see you all again.” She took a deep breath, falling silent.

Then Duncan said, “Do you know what August Eighth is?”

Isadora flinched slightly, as Quigley just kept staring at his siblings.

“It’s our birthday.” Duncan said. _“Our_ birthday. Do you… do you remember our thirteenth? One before last. It was our last birthday before… before our parents died.”

There was a flicker of something in Quigley’s eyes that was hard to place. Confusion? Shock? Grief? Whatever it was, it was _something._

“Do you remember what we did that day?” Duncan asked. “Mother and Father let us go into town, and we got ice cream, and then you thought it’d be funny to break into the back of a bookstore that closed down. We climbed in through a window, tried to see if they’d left any books behind.”

“Well, _we_ climbed in.” Isadora said, glancing at Duncan. “We had to drag you in cause you were _convinced_ we were going to get arrested.”

Duncan smiled slightly. “We didn’t find anything, but we spent hours in there. You kept insisting there had to be _something_ there, something exciting. But eventually we dragged you out, and then we got home, and Mother and Father said they’d take us to the Arcade the next week.” He bit his lip. “But they never got to. Because you… they… Quigley. Quigley, we missed you this year. We had a birthday without you and it was awful, and… and we just wanted to go back to that bookstore with you, and hide under the shelves and look for anything that might have been left behind.”

Duncan fell silent, wiping tears away from his face with his sleeve. Quigley was silent, too. After a moment, Isadora spoke up, “We missed you so much, Quigley. And  we know you’re there. We know you’re _here._ Just, please… please say _something.”_

Quigley was silent for what felt like forever, and Isadora and Duncan watched him, wondering if he was actually crying or if they were just imagining it. Then, he whispered, “Let me go.”

Isadora shut her eyes tight, trying not to cry, and Duncan gripped onto her arm.

And after a second, Klaus said, “Can I talk to you all a moment?”

 

Carefully, he pulled them out, making sure not to open the door enough that Quigley could see the windows. The second the door had shut behind them, Klaus rushed to the counter, grabbing a napkin and a pen.

“What happened?” Jake asked; he and Cleo were sitting in a booth with Carmelita and Sunny, while Moxie, Kellar, Pip and Squeak were leaning against the wall, watching intently; distantly, the teens noted that their bags had been placed onto a table.

“He’s talking to us.” Klaus said, scribbling onto the napkin.

“No, he’s not.” Isadora said, his voice cracked, as Fiona ran over to check on Sunny and Carmelita. “He’s not saying shit…”

“He is. He was tapping, on the side of the chair. Did you notice?”

Isadora and Duncan shook their heads, but Fiona said, “Yeah. You think that means something?”

“I think it’s morse code.” Klaus said.

“We don’t know morse code.” Duncan said.

“He does.” Isadora said. “He told me he taught himself whenever he got bored during his theater classes.”

“Really?”

Klaus raced over to the booth his sister sat at and slammed the napkin in front of them. As everyone crowded around, he translated the dots and dashes he’d written.

● ● ● ●   ●   ● - ●   ●

_H E R E_

“Oh, God.” Isadora said.

“He’s there. He can hear us.” Duncan said.

“We need to keep going.” Fiona said. “We need to keep him talking.”

“Okay,” Moxie said, staring down at the morse code message, “How you gonna do that?”

Fiona turned to Duncan and Isadora. “Think you can give him some more memories?”

“Absolutely.” Isadora said.

“Sunny,” Klaus said, “I’ll write down a Morse Code key, can you learn it?”

“Ye.” Sunny nodded seriously.

“We know Morse Code.” Cleo said. “We can help.”

“I understand,” Klaus said, writing furiously on the other side of the napkin, “But Sunny’ll get it much faster.” Sunny beamed.

“Klaus, stand at the edge of the door and copy his taps.” Fiona said. “Sunny, lean against this side and translate for them.”

“And for the love of God,” Klaus said, “Keep the door shut.”

 

“Do you remember when we went to that play?” Isadora asked, kneeling in front of Quigley. “It was a musical. I hated it. You loved it. You asked to take theater classes.”

Quigley watched her, his face blank, but he began to tap on the side of the chair.

_\- ● - ●_

Klaus tapped the door, and on the other side, Sunny called, “C!” Quickly, Kellar scribbled that onto a notepad.

“We never got to see you act, did we?” Isadora continued, trying not to watch her brother tapping onto the chair. “We’ll have to do that, once you’re back. We can find a theater, I’m sure.”

_● - ● ●   - - -_

“L, O.” Sunny said.

“Do you remember the first time we went into town by ourselves?” Duncan asked, as Isadora sat back. “I was terrified we were going to do something wrong and Mother and Father would never leave us alone again. But you weren’t afraid at all; you instantly just ran us to the ice cream place, and we stayed there all day.”

_● ●   ●   ● - - ●_

“S, E, G.”

“We were nine, do you remember? The night Mother and Father were both out late and we were scared that something had happened.” Duncan got a bit choked up there. “So we made our fort, out of pillows. So we could all hang out until they came home.”

“We fell asleep instead.” Isadora said, tears already streaming down her face. “And Mother and Father came home and put us to bed. But we were awake for a long time, just talking about anything we wanted in order to pass the time. Duncan fell asleep on top of you, you fell asleep on top of me.”

_● -   -_

“A, T.”

“We just want our brother back.” Isadora said. “We want you to come back, Quigley.”

“We love you.” Duncan said. “We love you so much.”

● 

“E.”

_C L O S E G A T E_

“Oh, shit.” Moxie muttered.

Sunny started to stand up, looking over at the adults, trying to piece together what letters she’d heard, but as she did, she made the mistake of leaning too much on the door.

Klaus only barely managed to get out of the way as Sunny accidentally crashed down onto the floor, and only because Fiona instantly grabbed his arm and pulled him towards her the second he tried to jump away.

Unfortunately, this meant the door had fallen along with the toddler, and Quigley instantly snapped to attention, his eyes darting to the windows outside.

“Fuck!” Fiona shouted.

Quigley’s eyes fluttered slightly, and he suddenly looked incredibly distant. His triplets leapt to their feet as he shut his eyes completely and started to hyperventilate, and Fiona raced forwards, sticking the syringe in his arm again.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Isadora yelled.

Duncan moved forwards to untie Quigley, and Fiona said, “No, leave him here, he’ll be safer hidden away!”

“I’m not leaving him tied _up_ , at least!” Duncan said, breaking the rope slightly.

“Is everyone okay?” they turned to see Jake in the doorway, picking up Sunny and looking her over.

“No!” Fiona said. “It knows where we are!”

“What?”

At that moment, they heard a very distant screech. “Goddamnit!” they heard Moxie call.

Fiona pushed past Jake, followed by the other kids; Klaus stopped, hurriedly taking his sister from the adult and hugging her close. Cleo leapt over the diner counter, reaching into a drawer. “Who knows how to use a gun?” she called.

“Holy _shit,”_ Carmelita yelled, leaping to her feet, “You guys have _guns?”_

“What, did you think we were planning to fight with our fists?” Moxie asked, rushing towards Cleo.

“Guns can’t kill these things!” Isadora insisted.

“It’s better than just waiting for those things to kill us.’ Kellar said. “Kids, stay in the back-”

“I can fight!” Klaus called.

“So can I!” Fiona added.

“Then protect each other.” Moxie said. “In the back.”

“But-”

“Behind us, _now!”_ Moxie called. “Pip, Squeak, if those things overwhelm us, you get the kids and get to the car.”

“No!” Duncan said, “You-”

“We don’t have time to argue!” Moxie said, as they heard a much closer screech.

Carmelita rushed behind Fiona and Isadora, the latter of whom was gripping onto Duncan’s arm, pushing him slightly behind her. Klaus stood in front of him, too, holding Sunny back slightly, getting prepared to shield her with his body if need be. The adults surrounded them, blocking them as best they could from the doors.

“Where are they?” Carmelita asked. Almost as if an answer, they heard a growl from beneath a window.

And then, quite suddenly, they heard a pained screech.

“What are they doing?” Duncan asked quietly.

They heard a rustling from the bushes outside, and more growls, before there were suddenly more shrieks. None of them sounded very happy.

“What the hell?” Jake muttered.

Moxie held up a hand to silence them all, her eyes locked on the window they’d last heard a noise from under. They all stood stock-still for a long while, all feeling incredibly tense.

Then a monster crashed through the window.

They all jumped, turning towards it, weapons pointed. However, the second the creature landed on the ground, it collapsed, unmoving.

“Holy shit.” Pip muttered.

“Is that…?” Cleo asked cautiously.

Moxie and Kellar shared a look, and then Moxie approached it, kicking slightly. It didn’t move at all.

“The hell?” she muttered.

“It’s _dead?”_ Fiona asked. “How-”

They heard a creak from outside, and turned towards the door. Moxie stepped back in place in front of the kids, aiming her gun again.

Then, as they watched, the lock on the door slid off.

And, slowly, it creaked open.

But a monster didn’t enter.

Instead, a teenage girl walked in, wiping her nosebleed on her sleeve.

The adults lowered their weapons, shock and confusion obvious among them. The girl stopped a few feet into the diner, eyes darting around the room, surveying the area.

Her eyes feel onto Fiona first; she’d moved closer to the front of the group, and now she was staring ahead in shock. The girl stared back, a spark of recognition, and then her eyes fell onto Carmelita, and then Isadora and Duncan. She was frozen a moment, and then her eyes darted around the group, looking for…

Klaus pushed himself past the adults, Sunny in his arms, the two of them ignoring their calls for them to go back. Klaus stopped right in front of the group, paralyzed with shock.

The two siblings stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, at first unable to believe their eyes. Then, slowly, Klaus smiled, relief radiating off of him, and Sunny let out a small laugh.

And, after another stunned pause, Violet smiled back.


	37. Violet plays Catch-Up

**CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN**

_Violet plays Catch-Up_

 

“Violet!”

“Klaus, Sunny!”

Violet and Klaus both raced forwards before they could even think, their feet carrying them over to each other. Violet threw her arms around her siblings, hugging them as close to herself as she could. Klaus instantly hugged her back, not even attempting to hold back his tears.

“Holy shit.” Carmelita whispered, as everyone slowly dropped their guard.

“Is that…?” Moxie asked, her eyes fixed on the girl. The teens nodded, slowly moving a bit forwards, too.

Violet let out a choked sob, and Klaus pulled back, suddenly worried. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Violet wiped her eyes with her sleeve, before saying, very loudly, “Why are you _tall?”_

Klaus stared for a moment, stunned, before he let out a laugh. “Really, Vi?”

“You’re _taller_ than me! That’s not fair!”

“Vi!” Sunny called, reaching out her arms so that her older sister could hold her. “Violet!”

“Sunny!” Violet cried, reaching forwards and taking her sister from Klaus, hugging her tight. “You’re so _big!_ You’re so- so big, Sunny!”

Klaus wiped his own eyes quickly, and he said, “What happened to your hair?”

“Long story.” Violet said, smiling at her brother, shifting Sunny to her side and running her free hand over her short hair. “I-I’m sorry-”

“We never gave up on you.” Klaus said, reaching to grab her hand. “Never. We called you, every night. Every night! For-”

“Three-hundred and fifty-three days.” Violet finished. Klaus stared, shocked, as she glanced down at Sunny. “I heard.”

“You… you heard?”

She nodded.

“Wh-why didn’t you say anything?”

Violet’s eyes widened in panic. “I couldn’t. I tried, I swear, but I couldn’t figure out how to talk, we could only listen- Klaus-”

“You could hear us?”

“Yes! We heard…” she shut her eyes. “I wanted to find you, I swear, but my ESP was going nuts and kept taking me to all the wrong places… I- but I heard you!”

Klaus stared at her for a moment in silence, looking like he was trying to process.

“Klaus?” Violet gripped his hand. “Hey? I’m here. I’m here now.” She sounded like she almost didn’t believe it herself. “I’m here.”

“You’re…” Klaus paused. “You’re… you’re here.”

“Yeah!”

Klaus bit his lip. “But… Violet, where have you _been?”_

“I…” Violet looked a bit concerned. “I’ve been… just running. Trying to follow my ESP, I- I was trying to find you-”

“It’s been a year.”

“I know, I know.” Violet bit back a sob. “I know, I wanted to find you so bad.”

“Violet, why-”

“I tried so hard, Klaus, I-”

“Why did you _leave us?”_

There was a dead silence, as everyone but the Baudelaires looked very uncomfortable.

“Klaus, I-”

“Why did you _leave?”_

Violet glanced over at Sunny, who was just as shocked as her sister. “Klaus?”

Klaus shut his eyes, and then said, “Sorry, I…” Then, he shook his head, slowly sliding his hand out of Violet’s. “It’s just… I’m sorry.”

Violet looked heartbroken. “ _I’m_ sorry, Klaus, I- you know why I did, that thing would’ve killed you, and I had to go get-”

“I _know.”_ Klaus shut his eyes. “I _know!_ I _know_ it’s not your fault and I _know_ you wanted to find us, but…”

“I know.” Violet took a shaky breath. “I know you still- I still _left._ I missed _everything.”_

“Violet, wait-”

“I missed you growing up. I missed _Sunny_ growing up. I missed your first steps, Sun, and you’ve been…”

“Violet-”

“It’s my _fault,_ I promised Mother and Father I’d protect you and I… I left you and…” Violet slowly dropped Sunny to the ground, hugging herself and backing up slightly. “I left you. I failed. I should’ve been here to protect you, and I couldn’t even _find you-”_

“Violet, I shouldn’t have said that!”

“I couldn’t even _find you!”_ Violet backed up some more. “What good am I? I couldn’t even find you! I- I couldn’t even… even help you… for a _year…_ ”

“Vi!” Sunny stepped forwards. “Vi-”

“I’m _sorry!_ I- I can’t-” Klaus raced towards her, hugging her again as tight as he could. Sunny ran, too, wrapping her arms around her sister’s leg. Violet stiffened, saying, “No, I’m sorry, I’m _sorry, I-”_

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that-”

“You were right-”

“That doesn’t _matter!_ You… we missed you.” Klaus held her tighter. “We missed you _so much._ And we’re… we’re glad you’re back.”

Violet tried to pull away one more time, and when Klaus and Sunny just grabbed her tighter, she finally burst into tears, holding onto her brother again.

The three siblings stayed there for a moment, just hugging each other and sobbing, and when they finally pulled away, Violet glanced over Klaus’s shoulder, her face going even more red as she saw the crowd still gathered there. She wiped her face with her sleeve, muttering, “Klaus, who…?”

“Oh.” He turned. “These are friends. They knew our Mother.”

Violet stiffened. “Did they?”

“Uh, that’s Moxie Mallahan, Kellar Haines, Cleo and Jake Knight, and Pip and Squeak Bellerophon.”

Violet bit her lip, picking up Sunny again, and Klaus gripped onto her arm. “And I know _them_.” she stated, looking towards the teens. “From the Rainbow Room, and the Lab, and…”

“Yeah.” Klaus nodded. “Uh, you remember them? And they talked on the radio sometimes.”

“Yes.” Violet’s eyes locked onto Duncan and Isadora, and after a moment, she stepped forwards. “I don’t… you’re Duncan and Isadora, right?”

“Yes?” Isadora said.

“I…” Violet leaned into her brother slightly. “I’m sorry, I… I was with your brother.”

Everyone stiffened slightly. “You were?” Duncan asked.

“You were?” Klaus repeated softly.

“Yeah.” Violet nodded, tears in her eyes again. “But I- I’m sorry, we got separated, I thought he might be _here…”_

“He is.” Duncan said.

Violet froze. “Wh-what? He’s _here?_ Quigley’s here?”

“Um…” Isadora began.

“Where is he?” When nobody responded, Violet’s face fell, and she repeated, much louder, “Where _is_ he?”

“He’s… he’s hurt-” Duncan began.

“Oh, God.” Violet’s eyes widened in horror. “No, no, no-”

“Violet?” Klaus said. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s-”

“Where?” was all Violet said.

Hesitantly, the triplets gestured behind them. Violet took a sharp breath, then rushed towards the backroom, dragging Klaus along with her, flinching as she got near the group. They moved out of her way, even as they called for her to slow down a moment, and she stopped in the doorway of the backroom.

“Wh-why is he _tied up?”_ she asked, her face very quickly going white.

“He’s kinda… possessed?” Klaus said quietly. “Violet-”

“What’s… _no!”_ Violet moved forwards some more, letting out another sob. “No, no, no…”

“Look,” Isadora said, moving after them, dragging Duncan along with her, “Look, he’s… this thing’s possessed him. But we can stop it.”

Violet barely glanced their way, and she leaned more into Klaus, her arm gripping tighter onto Sunny. “I… I can’t… I should’ve been here. I should’ve… I…”  

Her eyes trailed down to Quigley’s wrist, and she froze, her eyes glued to the ribbon still wrapped around it. “Where did he get that?” she asked, her voice a bit distant.

“It… it was in his bag.” Isadora said.

Violet looked about ready to break down. “He… he had a ribbon in his bag.”

“Violet,” Klaus said carefully, “Why don’t we go back to the diner? We’ll catch you up on everything that’s happening. You can catch us up on what happened to you.”

“I’d rather not.” she whispered. She glanced over at Duncan and Isadora. “Will he be okay?”

“Yes.” Duncan said.

“We’ll make sure of it.” Isadora added.

Violet bit her lip, then said, “Okay. Okay, tell me whatever. Just…” she grabbed tighter onto Klaus’s hand. “I’m not leaving you. Not again.”

“Okay.” he said, his own voice very choked up. “And we’re not leaving you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Amamus.” Sunny whispered, wrapping her arms around her sister. _“We love you.”_

Slowly, the siblings turned back towards the door.  

 

“So,” Violet said numbly, her hand still intertwined with her brother’s, “You just need to close the Gate?”

She was sitting beside her brother, while Sunny sat on the table in front of her. Isadora, Duncan and Fiona sat on the other side of the booth, while Carmelita leaned against it, nervously unbraiding and re-braiding her hair. The adults were standing back slightly, watching carefully as they let the teens do most of the talking; Violet seemed a bit more inclined to trust the kids closer to her age, and they couldn’t blame her for that.

“And then the Shadow dies.” Isadora said. “Or, at the least, it won’t be able to hurt us anymore.”

Violet bit her lip, thinking hard. Slowly, she let go of Klaus’s hand, taking a ribbon off of her wrist and tying it around her head like a headband; Klaus watched, a little surprised. “But you don’t know how to do that.”

“We can figure it out.” Duncan said. “How did it open?”

Violet glanced down at the table. “Quigley opened it on accident.”

“Well,” Isadora said quietly, “It’s not like he can close it.”

Violet paused. “I can try to sense how-”

“I can sense it.” Klaus said sharply. “You don’t have to-”

“You have extrasensory perception?” Violet paused. “You didn’t mention that on the radio.”

“It’s… relatively new.”

“Well, I can do it, I’ve been turning it on-and-off for a year now.”

“But you just got here. You’re probably tired from killing those monsters.”

Violet shrugged. “I’ll be fine. I’ve been through worse.”

“Posso.” Sunny said. _“I can do it.”_

“No, no.” Klaus said. “Just let me go.”

Violet paused. “If you… if you really want, but I can probably do it faster-”

“Oh my _god,”_ Carmelita huffed, “Can someone just tell us how we kill it already?”

“Don’t be rude.” Fiona said sharply.

Violet glanced over at Carmelita, a bit confused. “You’re Carmelita, right?”

“Uh, yeah. We met last year.”

“And you’re… like us?”

Carmelita hesitantly nodded. “Twelve.”

“How… do you know if there are any… experiments after you?”

Carmelita shook her head. “I’d’ve known. They liked to remind me a lot I was their last hope. I mean, they _could’ve_ gotten more after I left, but I seriously doubt it.”

Violet glanced over at the adults. “And you are… old friends of Mother?”

“Sort of.” Moxie said.

Violet narrowed her eyes. “Sort of?”

“Well-” Cleo began.

“Hold on.” Carmelita interrupted, turning to Violet. “Didn’t the Lab people think you could close the Gate?”

Violet froze up slightly. “What?”

“Yeah, that’s what they were gonna do with you before we showed up to save your ass.”

“Unfortunately, Carmelita’s right.” Fiona muttered. “Sunny did say that’s what they were doing.”

Violet paused, thinking. “I… I guess… but I wouldn’t know how. I assume it would’ve been a combination of my perception along with my kinetic abilities, but… I don’t know if that would work. I can only work with metal, and the Gate may not be-”

“I can do it.”

They all jumped and turned to Klaus. His nose was bleeding slightly, and he looked over towards Violet again.

“No.” Violet said.

“I can _do it.”_ Klaus insisted. “I can use my telekinesis to close the Gate.”

“Are you sure?” Fiona asked worriedly.

“Klaus,” Violet said quickly, grabbing his hand again. “I don’t want you going _anywhere_ near that thing. I don’t want you near the Lab-”

“It’s a bit late for that, Vi.” Klaus said. “And if we don’t close the Gate, we’re fucked. The Upside Down’s already taken over the tunnels, what happens when it spread to more of the world? And those Monsters are eventually going to get out of the Lab-”

“Klaus, you _saw_ that place.” Duncan said quietly. “It’s filled with the Monsters. You could die before you even get to the Gate.”

“I can fight.” Klaus said.

“Absolutely not.” Violet said. “I’m not letting you do that.”

“I’m not asking.”

“Kid,” Moxie said, stepping forwards, “I’m with your sister. Those things are everywhere.”

“If I don’t go,” Klaus repeated, “The Gate stays open, and everyone dies.”

“Then I’m going with you.” Violet said.

“Violet-”

“I just told you. I’m not leaving you.” Violet said. “I’m never leaving you again.”

“Um…” Isadora quietly glanced up. “Quick thought?”

“Is it important?” Fiona asked.

“Very.” Isadora said. “So, if we assume the Shadow is acting as a Hivemind, that means when we close the Gate, its army will die, right?”

“Yeah.” Duncan said. “So?”

“So.” Isadora said seriously. “Our _brother’s_ part of that army.”

There was silence for a moment, and then Duncan said, “Oh, fuck.”

“You think it’ll kill him?” Violet asked, sounding horrified.

“We can’t let that happen.” Duncan said. “We can’t- we can’t just let him _die.”_

“Maybe we won’t have to.” Isadora said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Maybe we just need to get the Shadow to give him up.”

“Give him up?” Carmelita asked. “How the hell-”

“Hold on.” Cleo glanced over at Isadora, looking very much like she was following her train of thought. “That thing’s a virus, right? And Quigley’s the host. So we just have to-”

“Make it impossible for the virus to live there.” Isadora nodded.

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Carmelita asked.

Violet sat up. “He likes it cold.”  

“What?”

“Quigley said that the Shadow liked it cold.” Violet said. “We just have to overheat it.” She shut her eyes. “Sucks that Mother’s not here, she could use some of her pyrokinesis.”

“You knew-” Klaus began.

“Fire’s not a bad plan.” Isadora said.

“Excuse me,” Jake said sharply, “Are you implying you want to set him on fire?”

“Maybe not _on_ fire…” Isadora said. “But if we overheat him enough- we’ll need heaters. Lamps. Fireplace- there was a fireplace at the old house, we can take him there.”

“Yeah,” Carmelita said, “And then the Monsters follow you there and kill you before you can get the Shadow out of him, and then they head to the Lab and kill Klaus and Violet while they’re at it.”

“Not if they have a distraction.” Fiona said.

“That better not be implying what I think it is.” Kellar sighed.

“Oh, it is.” Fiona nodded. “When Sunshine and I got into the tunnels, that Shadow thing got pretty pissed, didn’t it?”

“You want to go back to the tunnels?” Klaus asked.

“That might not work.” Carmelita said. “Not if it perceives everyone else as a bigger threat.”

“Well,” Fiona said, “It likes it cold, right? We’ll just set fire to the tunnels, too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Moxie said, “That’s a no.”

“We’ll take radios,” Fiona said, “So Duncan and Isadora can tell Klaus and Violet when it’s safe to close the Gate. Meanwhile, we’ll distract the Monsters. Even if the Shadow notices the others, it’ll have to divide resources, which is better than all of the creatures going for one group.”

“I think you’re forgetting something.” Moxie said. “Which is that we are _definitely_ not letting you do that.”

“Well, would you like the world to end?” Fiona asked.

“You’re kids, we’re not going to let you use yourselves as live bait.” Moxie said.

“We’re not kids.”

“You definitely are.” Moxie said. “If you need to set the tunnels on fire, we can do that. But you’re not-”

“We’re not _just kids.”_ Violet said, too, bristling. “We’ve been through shit, and we _know_ what we can do. We can fight these things.”

“You’re not just going to leave us out of this.” Isadora said. “We’re all in danger, so we should all be able to fight.”

“We’re not just going to let you run off on your own!”

“Okay,” Carmelita said, “Then supervise us.”

“Excuse me?”

Carmelita shrugged. “Some of you go to the tunnels with me and Fiona- shut up, Fiona, I’m totally going, too- some of you go with Duncan and Isadora to light their brother on fire-”

“Yeah, don’t think we’re going to go that far,” Duncan said.

“-and someone go with Violet and Klaus to the Lab.” Carmelita paused. “Oh, and someone will have to watch Sunny, I guess.”

“Pardon?” Sunny looked up sharply. _“Excuse me?”_

“Well, we can’t just leave you alone.” Klaus said.

Sunny shook her head. “Periculum,” she said, meaning, _“I’m going to the Lab with you.”_

“Absolutely not.” Violet said. “Sunny, Klaus and I can take care of ourselves, but you need to stay somewhere safer.”

“No!”

“Sunny, you can…” Klaus paused, trying to think of something that would keep his sister busy. “Um…”

“Look, none of this matters,” Cleo said, “Because you’re not going.”

“If we don’t _go,”_ Klaus repeated, _“Everyone’s_ going to die. Look. I can close the Gate, I _know_ I can. If you want to come with us, so be it. But unless you can think of any _better_ plans, _this_ is what we’re doing, and we don’t have to ask permission. If we have to, we can leave without you.”

“You’re not-”

“Isadora can knock people out.” Fiona shrugged. “If things get bad, I’ve got poison, Carmelita’s got persuasion. Klaus has fucknig telekinesis, he can throw you around the room. All of us can drive. If you don’t want us to die, then fucking help us.”

Moxie turned back to the adults, all of them looking like they were having a silent conversation. Then, Cleo said, “I can take the tunnel crew. My car’s fastest, and I feel that we’re going to want to start the fire as fast as possible.”

“I’ll go with you.” Jake said quickly.

“We can take the triplets.” Pip said quickly. “We’ll need to stop back at Black Cat, we left some files there-”

“Just drop us off, we’ll be fine.” Isadora said.

“No, if you’re _doing_ this, you’re getting supervised.” Moxie said.

“I can go with the kids, and Pip and Squeak can go get the files.” Kellar said. “If you’ll go with the Baudelaires, Mox.”

“We can take Sunny-” Squeak began.

“No!” Sunny huffed, moving closer to Violet.

“Sunny, you’re not going to the Lab.” Klaus said.

“Simul!” Sunny said. _“We have to stay together! You said you weren’t going to leave me!”_

“Sunny,” Violet glanced away so the toddler couldn’t see her holding back tears. “If that place is as dangerous as they think-”

“Fortis!” _“I can fight! I’m stronger than both of you, I can handle it!”_

“You know what those things can do.” Klaus said. “I don’t want that happening to you.”

“Numquam!” Sunny shouted, jumping to her feet. _“Nothing will happen to me! I can fight with you!”_

Violet and Klaus got to their feet, too, barely able to stand behind the table. “We don’t want you to get hurt!” Klaus said.

“Tibi!” _“Just let me do this!”_

“Sunny, no,” Violet shouted, “We’re not going to let our baby sister go in there!”

“I’m _not a baby!”_

Everyone froze in shock, especially Violet, who looked about ready to faint, and Klaus, who looked as if he’d just been slapped.

Sunny just glared up at them, balling her tiny hands into fists, and she repeated, “I’m not a baby.”

Violet put a hand over mouth, and then she whispered, “No. No, I guess you’re not.”

Sunny looked over to Klaus, who quietly said, “You’re right, Sun. You’re a toddler now.”

She looked between him and Violet, and then said, in her soft, high-pitched voice, “We go together.”

Klaus and Violet shared a look, and then Violet slowly nodded.

“Sunny’s right.” she whispered. “We go _together.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I will not be able to update tomorrow: I'm taking an online college class and I just found out the essay I thought was due next week is due tomorrow, and so now I have to speedrun 1.2k words. whoops


	38. Fiona and Carmelita finally commit Arson

**CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT**

_Fiona and Carmelita finally commit Arson_

 

After the teens all spent quite a while hugging each other and reminding each other to not take unnecessary risks, and to not die before they could see each other again, they groups split off. The adults had run to get supplies from the back, while Fiona and Carmelita were already in Cleo’s car, and Isadora was putting Quigley into the backseat of Pip and Squeak’s; Violet had hesitantly gone after her to ask some more questions about Quigley, holding Sunny in one arm and glancing towards Klaus constantly to make sure he didn’t get too far away from her. Klaus watched carefully as Isadora promised they were going to get Quigley back, and Violet once again glanced to the ribbon on his wrist.

Klaus jumped as he felt a hand grab his, but relaxed when he heard Duncan behind him, saying, “Hey?”

Klaus turned noticing that his friend looked a bit worried. “Hey! Uh, are you… okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Duncan said nervously. “Just… going to exorcise my brother. No biggie.”

“I mean… I’m going to close an interdimensional gate with my sister who’s been missing for a year and an actual toddler.” Klaus said awkwardly. “So… yeah, guess we’re both going to have pretty normal days, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Klaus bit his lip. “You should probably get to your siblings…”

“I… Klaus…” Duncan hesitated. “Look, we… we both know those monsters are still in the Lab, and if you- if you get hurt-”

“Nobody’s going to get hurt.” Klaus said, gripping tighter onto his friend’s hand. “You guys are in more danger, you and Isadora can’t fight as well-”

“We’ll be fine.” Duncan said. “Don’t worry about us, worry about yourself, okay? I… Klaus, please don’t die.”

“Nobody’s dying tonight.” Klaus said.

“Just be careful, okay?”

“You be careful, don’t set anything on fire.” Klaus smiled slightly. “That’s Fiona and Carmelita’s job.”

Duncan didn’t laugh. Instead, he said, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll be back.”

“Of… of course. And you’ll be safe?”

“I’ll try.” Duncan said, and Klaus suddenly realized he was crying. “Just… please say it.”

“Okay. I promise I’ll come back.”

Duncan looked away, trying to stealthily wipe his tears away. “Duncan,” Klaus  said, “Don’t worry about me. Go save your brother.”

“Yeah. You… go close the Gate.”

Duncan glanced around, looking to see if anyone else was paying attention to them. Then he looked back to Klaus, hesitated a moment, and then kissed him on the cheek.

Klaus froze up instantly, and before he could think of anything to say, Duncan rushed off towards his sister.

“Klaus?” Violet called, finally moving away from Quigley. “You ready to go?”

Klaus glanced after Duncan, and then said, “Uh. Yeah.”

 

The car ride to the tunnels was relatively quiet, as Fiona and Carmelita sat uncomfortably in the back. Carmelita kept messing with her hair, and Fiona kept glancing from the adults in the front seats to the windows, showing the rough road through the woods they were taking.

After a while, when she could tell they were getting close to the entrance Klaus had opened up, Fiona said, “Well. Um, this is a bit strange for me. Usually I’m the one driving.”

Jake glanced behind him. “How old are you, again?”

“Uh, Sixteen-ish? Lost track of when my birthday was.”

“And how long have you been driving?” Cleo asked.

“Stole my first car when I was… thirteen?”

“Oh dear God.” Cleo muttered.

“You say that as if Ellington didn’t steal a car when _she_ was thirteen.” Jake said.

“She put it back!” Cleo retorted. “And she also should _not_ have done that!”

“She stole a car?” Carmelita asked.

“Yeah, we’re not talking about this.” Cleo sighed.

“Why _not?”_

“So,” Fiona interrupted, “You’re sure we have everything? We just need the gasoline, right?”

“Yeah, we’re dumping all our gasoline in the base of the tunnel, and then a lighter should do the trick, so, yeah. We’ve also got extra coats, just in case, and a few weapons.” Jake said. “And you’re _sure_ you can get to the tunnel base?”

“Well, we have this.” Fiona said, holding up Quigley’s map, which Isadora had managed to get to her, “So that should take us where we need to go. If the tunnel closes behind us, hopefully we can still find a way out, or set enough shit on fire we open an exit.”

“You didn’t say anything about the tunnel closing behind us.” Carmelita said.

“How’d you think Sunny and I got lost?”

“I mean, I just assumed you were being a dumbass.” Carmelita muttered. “Also, I was being chased by a baby monster at the time, so I didn’t have a lot of time to think about how long you were down there.”

Both teens jumped as the car parked, looking out the window to see that they’d arrived in the field. Fiona quickly opened the door, and her and Carmelita climbed out, glancing at the hole in the ground while Jake and Cleo moved to the trunk. Before they opened it, though, Cleo waited until the two teens were looking at her.

“Okay,” she said. “Remember: our number one priority is making sure nobody dies. If there’s trouble, let Jake and I handle it.”

“Excuse me,” Fiona crossed her arms, “Who’s got poison powers, again?”

“And who’s not sure her poison will work?” Cleo replied.

Fiona took a deep breath and stayed silent, while Carmelita’s eyes widened.

“We’re dousing the center in gasoline, so grab a can.” Cleo said. “I’ll tie the rope- you two can climb, right?”

“Of course.” Carmelita said, while Fiona nodded stiffly.

“We’ll climb up and down that way. And you’re _sure_ we won’t get lost?”

“Even if we lose the map, I’m good with directions.” Fiona said.

“Okay,” Cleo said, “And once we get out of the tunnels, we get into the car and get as far away as we can. We’ll meet your friends at their place after we’re sure those things don’t follow us.”

“And if they do follow us?”

“We drive as far as we can until they stop.” Jake stated. “Is that all clear?”

Fiona and Carmelita nodded.

“One more thing.” Cleo said. “And repeat this back to me: you are to stay within our line of sight at all times, you are _not_ to run off, and you’re going to listen to everything we say. Understood?”

“We’re to stay within your line of sight, not to run off, and we’ll be trying to listen to you.” Fiona repeated.

“We’re to hide from you at every occasion, constantly run off, and ignore everything you say.” Carmelita said.

Cleo sighed, and Fiona said, “Ignore her, that just means she understands.”

“Good.” Cleo said. “Now, everyone stay close, take a can of gasoline, and don’t wander off.”

“Whatever.” Carmelita groaned, as Jake opened the trunk.

Cleo glanced at Jake. “Were we like this as teenagers?”

“I don’t think so.” Jake said. “But I’m pretty sure Moxie, Kellar and Lem acted just like them.”

“Whoa!” Carmelita said, pulling out a bat. “You _actually_ brought weapons?”

“Yeah, we’re not idiots.” Cleo said. “You want the bat? I’ll take the gun.”

“Deal!”

 

Fiona dropped into the tunnel, shivering. “God, this place sucks.” she muttered.

“Do you want to go?” Jake asked.

“Fuck no, you’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“I’m with Fi, though, these tunnels are creepy.” Carmelita huffed.

“Well, we’re not here on Vacation or anything.” Jake said. “Fiona, where we going?”

“Um…” Fiona pulled out her map, carefully placing the can of gasoline beside her as she opened it. “Straight. Then we’ll take a left-”

“Let me see that.” Cleo said, reaching for the map.

Fiona snatched it away. “No, you don’t.”

“I’m not going to take it and ditch you, kid.”

“I’ll be in charge of it!”

“Just let Fiona have the map.” Carmelita sighed. “It’s easier, trust me.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Carm.” Fiona snapped.

“I mean, I _know_ you’ll do it well-”

“But,” Jake added, “We don’t have time to argue.”

“Well.” Carmelita tossed her braid over her shoulder. “Let’s not go that far, there is _always_ time to argue.”

“We’re gonna go straight here, then there’ll be a fork and we go right.” Fiona said. “Okay?”

“Okay, I’ll stick to the front.” Cleo said. “Jake, stick to the back. If something attacks-”

“We got it, we run.” Fiona groaned.

“Can I use this?” Carmelita swung the bat in her hands.

“That’s for emergencies only, so no. Get moving.”

 

They wandered into a larger room, with Fiona shouting directions as she flipped the map in her hands.

“Is this place supposed to look like this?” Jake asked, brushing aside some dust with his hands.

“Looked like this last time.” Fiona muttered. “I think the Upside Down shit is spreading, though. So we better hurry it up- Carm, stop lagging behind!”

Carmelita had indeed managed to slip behind Jake, staring up at the ceiling. “There’s something up there.” she said, putting down her can of gasoline for a moment. “I think-”

They glanced up just in time to see something slimy on the ceiling, looking vaguely like a large flower, spit some kind of slimy substance onto Carmelita. She let out a screech and backed up, almost tripping over her can.

Instantly, they raced back for her. Jake managed to catch her before she completely toppled, and Fiona immediately started checking her over for injuries. Cleo turned back to the thing on the ceiling, pulling out her gun and firing a shot.

“Fuck!” Carmelita said, spitting the slime back onto the ground. “Fuck, don’t- don’t do that- those things’ll hear you!”

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” Cleo asked. “Aren’t we live bait or some shit?”

“Are you okay?” Fiona asked Carmelita.

“No, that shit was _disgusting!”_

“She means,” Jake said, “Are you _injured?”_

“Hmm, no.”

“Do you want to leave?”

“Hmm, _no.”_

“Okay,” Jake said, “Fiona, watch her, we’ll keep going.”

“I don’t need _watched!”_

“Apparently you do.” Fiona said. “Get your gasoline and move your ass.”

“Shut up, _Mom,_ I’m fine.”

“Fuck you, too!”

“Kids, we’re going to turn this mission around if you don’t shut up.” Jake said.

“Ugh, _fine.”_ Fiona groaned, as Carmelita finally picked up her gasoline. “We go left here.”

 

“So.” Cleo said. “This better be the Center.”

“Looks like it.” Fiona said, pocketing the map.

They’d entered a large segment of the tunnels, which had multiple exits spread across the walls, and quite the buildup of mold and webbing.

“Let’s drench it.” Fiona said.

They opened their gasoline, running across the room and starting to pour. Cleo had managed to grab some kind of hose, spraying gas onto the ceiling. Fiona kept watching Carmelita out of the corner of her eye, making sure the smaller girl wasn’t about to fall again. She also called out, “Watch the floor for roots, the little bastards move sometimes!”

“Won’t be a problem, we’re almost done.” Cleo said, kicking her can of gasoline into a corner. “Who’s got the fire?”

“Me!” Carmelita called excitedly. “I got the lighter!”

“I thought I had the lighter.” Jake said.

“And I’m a rascal.” Carmelita said, holding up said lighter.

“Oh, we’re having a talk about that on the car ride back to Hungry’s.” Cleo said.

“No, we’re not.” Carmelita said. “Come on, let’s the light this baby up.”

Fiona tossed her can, nodding. “Sounds like a plan. Everyone back into the tunnel, and then throw the lighter, Carm, and then we’ll run as fast as we possibly can.”

They backed up, and Carmelita flipped the lighter open, watching the flames flicker for a moment. Then she tossed it, and they ran.

They did not expect to hear such a loud screeching behind them, as they spotted tendrils and roots shoot into the air, emitting almost a piercing scream as the fire roared. Fiona pushed Carmelita ahead of her, already feeling the heat on her back. And after a few moments, they started to hear more screeches getting closer, and more footsteps following them.

“Well, plan ‘Live Bait’ definitely worked!” Carmelita yelled.

“Shut up and run!” Fiona yelled, jumping over a large root on the ground. “We take a right here!”

They turned the bend, and as they ran into a bit of a larger segment, Jake suddenly tripped, letting out a shriek as a root wrapped around his foot. Cleo instantly turned, gripping onto his arms to keep him from falling to the floor.

“Damnit!” Fiona screamed, and then she turned, grabbing the bat out of Carmelita’s hands.

“Hey!” Carmelita shouted.

“Sorry, I’m better with this and you know it.” Fiona said, and she ran over to the root and started pounding on it with the bat. It let out pained screeches, and after about a minute of Fiona hitting it as hard as she could, it finally relented, unwrapping from Jake’s leg and shooting back.

Fiona stepped back, tossing Carmelita the bat as Cleo lifted Jake up, looking horrified. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“He’s fine, get a move on!” Fiona yelled. “Those things are gonna catch up!” She turned to Carmelita. She grabbed Carmelita’s free hand, and once Jake and Cleo started moving again, they all took off.

When they made it back to the rope, and the noises of the monsters behind them was getting worryingly close, Cleo said, “Kids, you’re going up first.”

“Carmelita’s going up first.” Fiona said.

“Whatever.” Carmelita said, as she grabbed onto the rope and scampered up.

“You go up next, Fiona.” Cleo said. “Jake, then you go, I’ll make sure-”

“Uh, guys?” Fiona said, even as she grabbed the rope, watching Carmelita reach the top of the hole and climb into the dirt. “You hear that?”

They paused, looking around, hearing what Fiona had; the distant screeches.

“Get up!” Carmelita shouted to Fiona, eyes widening in horror. “Fi, get-”

Fiona gripped onto the rope, knowing for a fact she wouldn’t be able to make it up in time. She jumped, shocked, when Cleo grabbed her, pushing her behind her and saying, “Stay back!”

“Fi!” Carmelita screamed. “Fi, get up-”

Jake grabbed onto Fiona, turning her around and acting as a human shield, as Cleo raised her gun, and the monsters burst around the corner.

And they all froze, shocked, as the monsters raced around them, barely even glancing their way.

Fiona shook slightly, shocked and scared, unconsciously pressing herself closer into Jake’s hold until the monsters had vanished, running back down the tunnel.

“What the hell?” Cleo muttered, lowering her weapon slightly.

Fiona pushed herself away from the adult, as she heard Carmelita yell, “Are you guys okay? What the hell just happened?”

Fiona just adjusted her glasses, glancing back up the tunnel at her friend, suddenly feeling terrified.

“I think they’re going to the Gate.”


	39. The Quagmires perform an Exorcism

**CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE**

_The Quagmires perform an Exorcism_

 

“And you’re sure you kids are going to be alright?” Pip asked again.

“We’ll be okay.” Isadora said, watching carefully as Kellar lifted Quigley out of the car. “It’s just an _exorcism,_ how hard could it be?”

“We’ll be back as soon as we can.” Squeak said. “If you’re done by then, we’ll drive you back to Hungry’s, we’re meeting the others there. If not, we’ll try to help.”

“We’ll try to get done.” Duncan said quietly, climbing out of the car and then grabbing onto Kellar’s arm like a lifeline; he had _not_ enjoyed the drive over. “Mr Haines, just help us unload the heaters and shit.”

“You can really just call me ‘Kellar’, it’s fine.”

Isadora moved over to the door of the house, kicking it open and wandering in, eventually finding her way to the living room. She sat by the fireplace, taking off her bag and fumbling for her matchbox as the other two came in behind her. “We’re going to have to tie Quigley onto something.” Duncan said numbly. “So he doesn’t try to run or attack us.”

“We can probably move the bed from the other room.” Isadora suggested, still digging in her bag. “Toss off the blankets and use the mattress, tie his wrists and feet to the headboard. Plug in all the heaters you’ve got- Kellar, you brought extension cords?”

“Yeah, we should be able to use all of these if necessary.”

“One more thing.” Isadora pulled out her matchbox, and turned around to look at the two people behind her, locking eyes with her brother. “I’m going to… to _try_ to suppress my empathy. But I’m not great at that, so if I start… feeling what he’s feeling-”

“We’ll stop.” Duncan said.

“No.” Isadora said. “Just shove me somewhere else and keep going. We _have_ to get this thing out of him, or he will _die._ Understand?”

Duncan glanced away, hesitantly nodding. “Where’s the radio?”

“I’ve got it.” Kellar said quietly. “Soon as he’s safe, we’ll call Moxie and the Baudelaires, and they’ll close the Gate.”

“You think they’ll be okay?” Duncan asked.

“They’ll be fine.” Isadora said, flipping the matchbox in her hands. “Klaus and Sunny are strong, Duncan, and they’ve got their sister and Moxie with them. Worry about us, we’re stuck here setting shit on fire to try and get a shadow monster out of our brother. Now,” she glanced back over at them, “Go tie him up, I’ll start with the fire.”

Duncan nodded, clenching his fists and glancing at his unconscious brother. “Let’s kill this son of a bitch.”

 

Isadora did her best to clear the room of any useless furniture while Kellar and Duncan got the bed- while there wasn’t much furniture to begin with, it was a bit hard to push out the couch on her own. When they brought the bed in, Duncan helped her get the couch out of the way, and then he busied himself setting up and turning on the heaters and lamps they’d brought in, not glancing their way as Isadora and Kellar tied Quigley to the bed. Isadora didn’t blame him for that; she felt awful doing it herself.

And once they’d finished, Kellar went to help Duncan turn up the heaters, and Isadora got out her matchbox again, lighting a match and tossing it into the fireplace, which she’d filled with all the flammable junk they could find.

When they couldn’t find anything else to do, they backed up, standing at the edge of the room. “Okay,” Kellar said, “When something happens, stay back a little, and I’ll try to keep you safe.”

“We’ll be fine.” Isadora said quietly, even as she reached over and grabbed her brother’s hand.

The room got hotter and hotter the longer they stood there, and Isadora slowly grabbed a hairband out of her bag, tying her hair into a bun in the hopes that that’d help slightly. Duncan glanced nervously at her, asking, “Are you feeling-”

“Just hot.” Isadora insisted. “I don’t… _feel_ much right now. From him.”

Duncan took a deep breath, before grabbing her hand again.

They watched another few minutes, and then all felt very nervous when Quigley opened his eyes.

He let out a small gasp, and Isadora gripped harder onto Duncan, as Kellar stiffened. For a moment, Quigley didn’t move, just staring in confusion at the ceiling. Then he glanced at the fireplace, and tried to sit up, only to flop back onto the bed, the ropes on his limbs keeping him down.

“Wh-what’s happening?” he called, turning to look at his siblings. Duncan shut his eyes, glancing away from his brother. “I-It hurts. It hurts!”

Quigley started screaming, struggling to break out of the ropes, and Duncan gripped harder onto Isadora, who felt paralyzed. He kept thrashing on the bed, screaming, “It hurts! It _hurts! It hurts! It HURTS! Let me go! Let me GO!”_

“Duncan, do you need to go?” Isadora asked quietly, and Duncan nervously shook his head.

_“Let me go! Let me GO!”_

“Kids,” Kellar asked quietly, looking very worried, “Are you sure he’ll be okay?”

“We need to burn it out of him.” Isadora said stubbornly.

_“It hurts! Let me go! Let me-”_

“We need to _burn it out of him!”_ Isadora yelled, and she broke away from Duncan, running to a heater and turning it up to its highest setting.

“Isa!” Duncan called, as Quigley let out a pained shriek.

Isadora ran to the next heater, turning it up again, blowing a loose strand of hair out of her face, ignoring the flares of heat she was starting to feel, trying to push down the terror in her chest. Duncan let out a small cry, throwing his hands over his ears and sinking to the floor. Kellar dropped down to hug him, a small comfort as Quigley continued to scream and thrash against the bed. _“Let me go! LET ME GO! NO! LET ME GO!”_

He stopped shouting words, then, instead just screaming and struggling against his bonds. Isadora stumbled back towards her other brother, standing in front of him, shutting her eyes and trying to keep focus.

 _Don’t feel. Don’t feel. Don’t_ feel…

“Isa!” Duncan screamed, shutting his eyes. “You’re killing him! You’re _killing him!”_

“We need to burn it!” Isadora shouted back, hugging herself. “It needs to _burn!”_

“Kid,” Kellar tried to shout over Quigley’s screams, “Kid, this is going too far, you’re going to kill him!”

“That _thing_ will kill him if we don’t kill it first!”

“It’s not _working!”_ Duncan struggled against Kellar, trying to stand up. “It’s not _working, Isa, he’s going to die!”_

“Just _wait_!”

“How much _longer?”_ Duncan asked, tears springing to his eyes. “Isa, just _look at him!”_

Quigley was still thrashing and screaming, starting to sound almost unnatural. After a moment, Duncan finally broke away from the others, running to a heater.

“No, leave it!” Isadora screamed, rushing up and grabbing his arm, yanking him back.

“Isa, you’re _killing him!”_

_“Leave it!”_

“Kids!” Kellar shouted. “Look!”

They glanced towards him. “What?” Isadora shouted.

Kellar pointed towards Quigley, “His neck! Look, his neck-!”

The two triplets turned towards Quigley, both freezing in place as they saw some kinds of black veins shooting up their brother’s neck as he screamed.

At that moment, the lights around them started to flash, and Quigley let out an incredibly inhuman shout, starting to convulse and shake against the mattress. Isadora hugged Duncan closer to her as the lights started flashing harder, leaving it difficult to see.

“Isa!” Duncan shouted. “Isa, please, just-”

“We’re killing it!” Isadora said. “We’re killing it, Duncan, we- _no!”_

Quigley’s left hand suddenly broke free, the rope splitting in half. He reached towards his other arm, and Isadora released Duncan, rushing for Quigley and grabbing onto his arm, ignoring the shouts from behind her.

“No, no, no, no!” Isadora yelled, feeling a burst of panic as she wrestled Quigley’s arm back, trying to pin it back to the mattress to re-tie it, noticing the black veins shooting farther, spreading onto his face. “No, no-”

As she slammed his hand onto the mattress, she suddenly felt a burst of pain, a pain that wasn’t _hers._

_No, no, no, no…_

She let out a scream, almost collapsing, vaguely hearing Duncan shout behind her. And then she felt a hand close around her throat, and suddenly she was lifted into the air.

_“Isa!”_

Isadora processed everything far too slowly; Quigley had somehow managed to lift her up- he shouldn’t be able to do that, Quigley could barely lift his own bag without help, there was no way… but he was, he was holding her up, staring at her with emotionless, blank eyes, his skin covered in black veins, swirling across his face.

She realized about then that she couldn’t breathe, but it barely mattered; she was feeling too hot, _too hot_ , there was some kind of pain in her chest. She shut her eyes, barely hearing the shouts from around her.

She vaguely heard footsteps nearby, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Duncan race to the other side of the room, grabbing something from the side of the fireplace. She tried to look over at him, but she could barely move; she felt hands at her side, and she finally noticed Kellar trying to rip her away from Quigley; it didn’t seem to be working.  

And then she felt a flash of pain in her side- no, no, it wasn’t _her_ feeling, someone else was… Quigley. It had to be Quigley, because he screamed, and suddenly she could breathe.

Isadora gasped, falling back onto the mattress as Quigley’s hand fell to his side. Kellar tried to pull her away, but she shook him off, turning and staring as Duncan stepped backwards, tossing a red-hot fire poker to the side. She followed his gaze, staring down at a newly burnt spot on the side of her other brother’s shirt.

“Holy _shit!”_ she gasped, still shaking, still feeling too much, too _much_.

Duncan looked very pale and very scared, but he ran forwards as Quigley started up, trying to sit up again. He grabbed his brother’s shoulders, pushing him down, jumping up onto the bed so he could block him from Isadora.

“Get the _fuck_ out of my _fucking_ brother!” he screamed.

Isadora shut her eyes, and then threw herself forwards, helping Duncan pin Quigley down.

“Go back to hell, you son of a _bitch_!” she added.

She shut her eyes as she felt another strong flash of heat, and Quigley let out another monstrous screech. Kellar managed to pull the the other two triplets back as Quigley started to convulse again, ripping them away as the lights flickered faster and faster.

And then Quigley screamed, and some form of black smoke burst from his mouth, shooting into the air and gathering over their heads. It held for an instant, and then burst out the window, vanishing into the night.

Kellar raced to the extension cord, hurriedly unplugging the heaters, before yelling something about making sure the cloud was gone before running for the door,.

Duncan and Isadora barely heard him. They ran to unplug the rest of the lamps and heaters and shut off the fire in the fireplace, and as soon as they’d accomplished that, they shared a terrified look and then ran to their brother.

Isadora managed to break the ropes, and Duncan sat him up, saying, “Quigley! Quigley, are you okay? Please, Quigley, talk to us!” Isadora tossed the ropes, and then ran to stand beside Duncan, putting one arm around him and her other hand on Quigley; he looked unconscious, and she couldn’t even tell if he was breathing.

She let out a choked sob, as Duncan, also crying, said, “Quigley! Quig, please! _Please!”_

And then, as Isadora and Duncan cried together, Quigley’s eyes flickered open.

“Quigley!” Isadora said, a smile spreading across her face. Duncan grinned, too, letting out a sigh of relief.

Quigley looked confused for an instant, and then he said, “Isa? Dun?”

Instead of saying anything else, Isadora reached forwards and pulled her two brothers into a tight hug. After a moment, she could feel Quigley cry, too, and the three triplets sat there for a long while, just hugging and crying and just feeling pure joy.

They briefly heard Kellar come back in, saying something into the radio. But as he did, Isadora pulled away, staring at Quigley’s face, streaked with tears and sweat.

“I love you.” she said quickly. “Quig, I love you so much.”

Quigley continued to cry, unable to say much, looking completely exhausted. Duncan repeated Isadora’s message, hugging himself close to his triplet. “I love you.” he said. “I’m sorry, I-”

“God, you fucking idiot.” Isadora said quietly, her voice still shaking. “Do you know how scared we were? You just _had_ to go and get yourself possessed.”

Duncan pulled away a bit, too, and Quigley allowed himself a small, pained smile. “Well,” he said softly, his voice exhausted, “Was the best plan really burning the shit outta m- ow! Fuck!” he glanced down at his side. “Duncan, why the hell did you-”

“Hey, it worked!” Duncan said, leaning his head onto his brother’s shoulder. “You’re alive.”

Quigley, still crying, nodded, and Isadora hugged him again.

“We’re alive.” she whispered. “We’re _alive.”_


	40. The Baudelaires close the Gate

**CHAPTER FORTY**

_The Baudelaires close the Gate_

 

The car ride to the Lab was silent for a while. Violet and Klaus sat on opposite sides of the car, staring out the windows and hugging their knees, while Sunny sat inbetween them, still sulking about not getting to drive.

After a while, Klaus asked, “So. What happened?”

“What?”

“While you were alone. Quigley… I don’t know what happened, but he disappeared-”

“We got separated.” Violet said quietly. “He must’ve tried to teleport to a meeting spot, and… something must’ve gone wrong.”

“He said as much.” Klaus said.

“Oh.” Violet said. “Did he… say anything about me?”

“No, actually. He was very… unfocused. Amnesia and stuff.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

Klaus bit his lip, slowly sliding a hand over Sunny’s. “But you were… together for a year?”

“Well…” Violet blushed slightly. “I mean… ‘together’... literally, yeah, um, we kinda had to take care of each other…”

“Like you take care of us?”

“What?” Violet glanced over, confused. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Klaus stared out the window. “Nothing.”

Violet froze for a moment, before suddenly getting very, very embarrassed. “Klaus? Are you _jealous?”_

“No!” his face went red. “No, it’s just- look, we missed you for a year and-”

“Do you think I _replaced_ you?”

“No!”

Violet sighed as he protested; she could still very easily tell when her brother was lying. “Klaus, that’s not it at all!”

“Well, I mean, you got-”

“Klaus, I _like_ him!”

There was a dead silence after that, for a very long time.

“So.” Violet said, trying to ignore how red both her and Klaus’s faces were getting. “He’s. Definitely not replacing you. As a… brother. Unless, I mean, he doesn’t like me like- but that’s just… not what was happening. This year. And it’s not like I could ever just _replace…_ you know.”

“Oh.” Klaus said. “Okay.”

“Oh.” Sunny also said quietly.

Violet glanced over at Moxie, who caught her gaze and said, “Kid, I’m pretending I’m not here, to be honest, so I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.”

“Good plan.” Violet murmured, curling up. They were quiet again, and then she whispered, “What about you?”

“What?” Klaus asked.

“I mean… I’ve heard a bit more about how your year went.” Violet muttered. “But…” She lowered her voice, so that only those in the backseat could hear. “What about you and Duncan?”

“Wh-what about me and Duncan?”

“I mean… I kinda saw- on the deck- right before we left- I just assumed-”

“Oh. I mean, that’s… that’s not… I-”

Violet sighed. “Klaus, listen. I- and Mother and Father, we… we always kinda… we always kinda _knew_ you were into boys.”

“Uh…” Violet wondered if Klaus’s face could get more red. “Oh?”

“I mean… when you were five, this taller kid got you a book off a high shelf at the store, and you told us for three weeks how you planned on marrying him.” He fell silent, and she added, “And… we also could definitely tell why you liked Luke Skywalker so much, you don’t have to pretend there.”

“Hey!” Klaus said, as Sunny let out a giggle.

“Hey, if it helps,” Violet allowed herself a small smile, “Why do you think I liked Leia so much?”

Klaus finally looked over at her, a bewildered look on his face. “I thought you just- you just said you liked boys?”

“Mother said you could like both.”

“You can?”

Violet smiled slightly. “She said she did.”

“Really?” Violet nodded, and Klaus curled up a bit. “I… I feel like I don’t- there are so many things I don’t know about her. Or Father.”

Violet bit her lip. “I know the feeling.”

“I didn’t even find out her ability until yesterday.”

“I kinda figured it out.” Violet admitted. “When she tried to- to save me, she shot fire out of her hands, it’s a bit hard to miss that.”

They fell silent, and then Sunny muttered, “No secrets?”

“Sunny’s right.” Klaus said. “Vi, now that you’re back, I don’t… I don’t want to feel that way about you. I don’t want any secrets between us.”

Violet slowly brushed a short strand of hair behind her ear, and then whispered, “It’s a good sentiment.”

“Violet!”

“Listen, I-” she shut her eyes. “I don’t want secrets either, but…”

“But _what?”_

“There are just some things I… I don’t know if I _can_ talk about. Not because I _want_ to keep them from you, but because I don’t even know if I want to think about it, if I want to… and not be-because I don’t _trust_ you, but I just…”

Klaus reached over, putting a hand over hers, and Sunny quickly copied him. Violet flinched slightly, but looked back over at them.

“That’s okay.” Klaus said carefully. “That’s okay, Vi. But I just… I don’t want secrets because you don’t trust me, or because you think you have to protect me.”

“Same.” Sunny said.

“You don’t have to talk about anything too painful.” Klaus said. “But I don’t want you to have to hide things from me. And we’ll do the same, won’t we, Sun?”

“Ye.”

Violet bit her lip, holding back tears, and she nodded. “Okay. No secrets.”

Klaus gripped onto her hand, and said, “We missed you so much.”

“I missed you, too. We looked forward to your calls every day.”

“I was hoping you heard.” Klaus flinched then. “Sorry about the last couple.”

“Um, I actually missed a few.” Violet admitted. “In the last week. Mostly because we couldn’t find a safe place.”

“Good, they were not… great.” Klaus said.

“Sad.” Sunny explained.

“Oh.” Violet paused. “We tried to respond, we really did…”

“I’m sure you did, we-”

The car stopped, and Violet froze up, retracting her hand and staring down at it, so that she wouldn’t have to look out the windows to confirm where they were.

“Alright,” Moxie said, opening her door, “Let’s make this fast.”

Klaus nodded, opening the door. “I’ll carry Sunny, we- Sunny?”

Sunny slid off the seat, fixated on a handbag on the floor. Wordlessly, she grabbed it, opened it, and flipped it, watching as its contents spilled on the floor.

“Sunny!” Klaus yelled. “What-”

Ignoring him, the toddler threw the strap over her shoulder so she could wear it, and then she climbed out the door, running down the path. Klaus rushed after her, Violet slowly following. As soon as Moxie noticed them, she ran, too, saying, “Kids, what are you doing?”

Sunny crouched at the edge of the parking lot, reaching into the grass and pulling out a rock. She dropped it into the bag, reaching for another by the time Klaus had reached her.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Ammo.” she said.

“What?”

Sunny glanced up at him. “Pugno.” she shrugged. _“I’m going to be fighting, right? So I need weapons.”_

“Weapons?”

Sunny picked up a rock and then threw it at another car in the parking lot. Klaus flinched as he saw the rock hit the car door, causing a loud _crash_ and leaving a large dent.

“Holy shit.” Moxie said, stopping beside Klaus. “She did that? Did you know? Your sister can do _that?”_

“Apparently.” Klaus said. He watched as she stuffed her bag with rocks for a moment, and then he said, “Well, hurry up, Sun, we need to go…” he turned, and then felt his heart sink. “Violet?”

Violet had stopped in the middle of the parking lot, staring up at the building before them. Klaus slowly picked up Sunny and walked over to her, getting increasingly worried. His older sister looked completely paralyzed, her wide eyes glued to the towering Lab before her. After a moment, she started shaking, hugging herself and muttering something under her breath.

“Violet?” Klaus asked, moving up next to her. “Violet?”

She started, turning towards him, a haunted look in her eyes. Klaus bit lis lip, sharing a concerned look with Sunny. “Do you want to stay out here?”

“No!” she said quickly. She shook her head, hoping to clear it, repeating, “No, no, I’m going with you.”

“If you want to stay-”

“Klaus. I’m going with you.”

She glanced over her brother’s shoulder, watching as Moxie walked up; the adult had a gun now, and she was also eying the Lab. “This place is still swarming with creatures,” she said, “So you’re going to have to stick by me. We don’t want anyone getting stuck on their own.”

“Of course.” Violet nodded. She reached out, grabbing onto Klaus’s hand. “I don’t want you two out of my sight.”

Moxie gave her a concerned look. “Are you okay, Violet?”

“It doesn’t matter, we have a job to do.” Violet said, glancing away from her.

“Violet, if you can’t do this, we can go-”

“I’m _staying_ with my siblings.” Violet insisted.  

Moxie sighed, and then said, “Okay. But stay with us, and if it gets to be too much, you can leave at any time.”

“That won’t be happening.”

“Alright. Now, I think I know where the Gate is-”

“I know where it is.” Violet said stiffly.

“Yeah, there’s the problem. You haven’t been here this year.” Moxie said. She moved slightly, so she could make sure that all three kids were looking at her. “Okay, listen. Klaus, Kellar said that you got to see the Gate through the viewing room, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“But the actual Gate is underground. You’re going to need to get to the entrance. I know where it is, we’ve studied blueprints of this place, but I’ve never actually been there. We’re going to get to the entrance, close the Gate, and get out. Understood?”

They nodded, and Sunny mumbled, “Understood.”

“Okay, so, we’re going to get in as fast as possible.” Moxie said. “We’ll need to find an open door-”

“Won’t be a problem.” Violet said, and she started walking, dragging Klaus behind her. After a startled moment, Moxie followed.

Violet led them up to the Lab, stopping as soon as she got to a door. Then she placed her hands on it, shutting her eyes and pausing a moment, and then the door flew off its hinges. Before it could hit anything, Violet flicked her hand, and the metal door exploded into liquid.

“Whoa.” Sunny said.

Violet stepped back, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Come on, then.” she said. “We’ve got a Gate to close.”

 

Klaus and Violet stayed very close together as they walked down the hall. Sunny eventually insisted that Klaus put her down, and she walked besides Violet, one hand in her bag in case she needed to attack. Moxie stayed slightly in front of them, one hand on her gun at all times. The four of them all flinched whenever they turned a bend, whenever they heard something distant. Occasionally, when they turned a bend, they would find a corpse, or pool of blood, and Violet would lift up Sunny and shield her from the sight as they tried to step over it, tried not to think about if that meant the monsters were nearby.

By the time they reached the stairwell, Violet was looking incredibly nervous again. Quietly, she whispered, “H-how long were you here? Before I came.”

“Just a few hours.” Klaus said.

Violet bit her lip. “Did they… did they hurt you?”

“No. Not… not these people.”

Moxie pushed the stairwell door open, and the children filtered in, with Klaus grabbing Violet’s hand. “How…” Violet hesitated. “How much did they hurt you before you found me? Last year?”

Klaus glanced over at Sunny as they descended the staircase, using his free hand to grip tightly onto the railing. The toddler managed to get down the stairs fine, following Moxie, who’d moved up ahead.

“Violet,” he asked, “How much did they hurt you?” Violet was silent. “I… Vi, I remember how- how you looked when we found you. I can’t forget that. I-”

“They’re dead now.” Violet said simply. “They’re dead and they can’t hurt us again. And we can talk about this when we’re not trying to close a portal to a Hell-dimension, okay?”

“If you need anything,” Klaus said, “Just… tell me.”

“Of course. Same to you.”

They stopped at the next landing, as Moxie was pushing the door open, hesitantly looking into the hall. She gestured for them to follow, and Violet picked up Sunny again, holding her close and glaring at the flickering light above them.

They only walked a few footsteps, though, before they heard a distant screech and froze. Moxie turned towards them, then, and said, “I’ll check it out.”

“We can kill those things easier than you can.” Klaus said.

“I’ll _check it out.”_ Moxie insisted.

She went down the hall, and Klaus gripped tighter onto Violet’s arm. “We’re going after her, obviously.” Violet assured him. “Just wait a moment so she won’t notice.”

They waited about a minute, before creeping after her. Sunny leaned up against Violet, reaching into her handbag for a rock. Klaus carefully flexed his free hand, thinking about what he could possibly throw. Violet shut her eyes a moment, letting herself sense the metal around them.

After a minute, though, they found a door swinging open, and they entered to see Moxie standing by a wall of shattered glass. She turned, glaring at them, but instead of reprimanding them, she just said, “Couldn’t wait up?”

“Is there a Monster here?” Violet asked.

Moxie shook her head. “Was. Jumped down, I presume into the tunnels. Looks like the Tunnel Team managed to be a good distraction.”

Klaus stiffened, and Violet said, “We’ll just have to hurry and close the Gate, then. Once we get the signal.”

Moxie glanced through the shattered glass again. “There’s a lift that’ll go down to the main Gate, but I don’t know if all of us can fit.”

“Then we’ll go, and you stay up here.” Violet said.

“No, you-”

“Klaus thinks he can close the Gate, so he has to go.” Violet said. “I might be able to help, and Sunny can probably rip those monsters limb-from-limb.”

“I know you’re capable, but you’re still children, you shouldn’t be alone.”

“We’re not alone.” Klaus said.

“We have each other.” Violet added.

Before Moxie could respond, they heard a buzz, and the adult slowly pulled a radio out of her jacket pocket. “Hello?” she said. “Kellar?”

“Moxie?” Kellar’s voice came from the radio. “The kid’s alright. Close the Gate.”

Violet let out a relieved sigh, even as Moxie turned to give them a sad look. “Are you _sure?_ It _will_ be dangerous down there.”

“It’s dangerous everywhere.” Klaus said. “But we can do this. And, um, no offence, but probably better than you.”

Moxie let out a sigh, and then reached forwards, putting a hand on Klaus’s shoulder, staring the kids dead in the eye. “If you need anything, call for me. I’ll be up here. As soon as you’re done, get back up, and I will get you out of here, and then you never have to see this place again.” They nodded, and Moxie said, “And if you need to leave before you close it, we’ll find another way.”

“This is the only way.” Violet said. “And we’re going to succeed.” She smiled slightly, and then said, almost to herself, “We’re going to do the scary thing first, and get scared afterwards.”

Moxie froze a moment, and then smiled. “Did your parents say that to you?”

Violet hesitantly nodded. “Mother did.”

“We used to say that.” Moxie said. “When we were your age.” She took a deep breath, and then said, “Good luck.”

 

Violet tried to study the mechanisms of the lift, but after a few seconds, she figured she could do that when they weren’t pressed for time. She leaned against the railing as Klaus put Sunny onto the ground, focusing hard on the metal surrounding them, and they felt themselves slowly lower.

To the three siblings, it seemed as if they were lowering themselves right into another world- which they might have been, they weren’t sure. The wall grew more and more unnatural, and there was a faint red glow that got brighter the further they went. When they finally stopped, and looked ahead at the Gate, Klaus slowly reached over, grabbing onto Violet’s hand, and Sunny moved to his other side, wrapping her small fingers around one of his.

Up ahead, the Gate stretched across the wall. The red light shone through piles of thick webbing, covered in a familiar slime. It was huge, bigger than they’d expected, _much_ bigger than it had been the year before. Violet turned to Klaus, and quietly said, “I can figure out what to do now.”

“I think I know.” Klaus said softly, and he slowly slid his hands away from his sisters, raising one and pointing it at the Gate as he shut his eyes.

As he did, Violet and Sunny saw a flash of light from behind the Gate, and some sort of shadow moving.

In fact, the Shadow grew bigger, and almost looked like it was facing them.

_Oh._

“Sunny, get ready to fight.” Violet muttered, stepping a bit closer to the railing, grabbing onto it and shutting her eyes. If she could focus a bit more… She glanced over at Klaus, seeing that his nose was bleeding a little. He had his eyes shut again, and he was clearly focusing very hard.

“Klaus.” Sunny said quietly. She moved closer to him, and then said, “Ira.” _“Get angry.”_

“What’s that mean?” Violet asked.

“Raiva.” Sunny said. _“He needs to be angry. It makes him stronger.”_

Violet bit her lip, turning back to the Gate, and jumping. She saw something black start to spread across the red, and as she squinted, she realized the wall was, incredibly slowly, closing up over the slime.

The Shadow moved again, as if it was watching. Violet gripped onto the rails, focusing harder.

_Now would be a good time to tell me what to do._

Before she could focus enough, she heard a screech. She jumped and turned just in time to see Sunny step behind her, grab a rock from her bag, and hurl it at the wall. Violet watched as the rock hit a small monster that had been scrambling up the wall, and it let out pained shriek before falling.

“Holy shit.” Violet said. “Nice work, Sunny.”

Sunny beamed, and Violet turned back to Klaus. He had stopped a moment, glancing at his baby sister, but then he turned back, holding out his hand again. Sunny grabbed another rock, moving to the side and aiming again. They’d have to hurry.

Violet shut her eyes, thinking hard.

She didn’t hear Klaus’s voice this time.

“You’re doing well, darling.” came her Mother’s voice, thought Violet didn’t see her. “You’re all doing great. Just keep at it.”

_What can I do?_

“Klaus is getting very good at channeling his anger, he’s going impressively fast.”

_What can I DO?_

“Focus on the Gate, Vi.”

_And then what?_

“Think about how you need to close it, or that Shadow will destroy everything.” Violet shut her eyes, and she heard, a bit louder, “Klaus will need your help in a moment. Are you ready?”

_Of course I am._

She distantly heard Sunny hurl another rock, heard another screech as it made impact with a creature, but it didn’t really matter now.

She held out a hand towards the Gate, watching Klaus out of the corner of her eye. He was intensely focused on the Gate, his nose bleeding very heavily now. She turned away slightly, looking directly at the Shadow, which still seemed to be watching them.

_Well, fuck you._

She held out her hand farther, and saw the black of the wall quickly increase its speed in closing over the webbing.

“Klaus, are you okay?” Violet asked quietly. He didn’t respond. “Klaus? Klaus?”

 

_“Klaus?”_

Klaus was barely paying attention, his eyes locked onto the Gate. He could barely even tell what he was doing anymore, only that he thought it was working.

_“Just try to use your anger instead of your fear. Or use a little of both.”_

Well, he was definitely scared.

And he was _definitely_ pissed off.

 _“Find something in your life. Something that_ angers _you.”_

This thing was a threat, a threat to their whole world. And it wanted to kill them all- to kill his friends, his _siblings._

_Close the Gate._

_“Keep going.”_

_“Find something that_ angers _you.”_

There were lots of things that angered him at the moment. The Lab that had taken his family away from him. The secrets that had been kept from him. The entirety of the last year, honestly.

He noticed, slightly, that his nose was bleeding quite a lot. But that didn’t really matter.

_Close the Gate. Close it. Close it._

He heard a slight gasp from beside him, and he looked up to see a black, swirling cloud reach out from the Gate, starting towards them.

_No._

He felt Violet beside him, raising her hand and trying to focus her energy on that smoke. He felt Sunny turn towards them, probably trying to judge whether or not she could throw a rock at the smoke or if that’d just make it worse.

_No._

He raised out his other hand, staring at the cloud, and he suddenly felt as though he was floating. He might _be_ floating.

_You’re not going to hurt them._

He watched as what looked like a wall of fire burst in front of them, blocking the smoke, knocking it back. The cloud retreated back into the Gate, and as he watched, the black wall of the Lab closed over it.

The red light that had been surrounding them suddenly vanished, replaced with a dim blue. There were distant _thuds_ as the monsters that had been around them fell, lifeless.

Klaus fell, too.

For a few moments, he could barely feel anything, barely process anything around him. It took him a minute to even open his eyes.

And when he did, he realized Violet was holding him. She looked tired, too, blood still on her face, a terrified expression in her eyes. “Klaus? Klaus, please, talk to me! Are you okay?”

He stared at her for a second, feeling to exhausted too talk. So instead, he pulled her forwards slightly, and she hugged him close, crying softly. He felt Sunny’s small arms around him, too.

“We did it.” Violet whispered. “We did it. We’re okay.”

Klaus nodded, and as his sisters hugged him, he let himself pass out.


	41. Moxie accidentally adopts Eight Kids

**CHAPTER FORTY-ONE**

_Moxie accidentally adopts Eight Kids_

 

When Violet finally got the lift back up, she glanced through the broken glass wall to see Moxie leaning against the wall. When she spotted them, though, she jumped up, racing towards them. Violet flinched slightly, seeing that the adult’s shirt had been torn, the strip of fabric used to wrap part of her arm. “What happened to you?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about-”  

“What _happened?”_

Moxie hesitated. “One of those creatures got up here, managed to scratch me before it dropped dead. It’s not a problem, I’ve already wrapped it up, we can deal with it later. What happened to Klaus?”

Violet glanced down; she was still holding her brother, who seemed to have passed out. Sunny sat in the corner of the lift, looking up at him, too. “We did it.” she simply said. “The Gate’s closed.”

“The Gate’s closed? You did it? Is he okay?”

“Yes. He’s just sleeping.” Violet said.

“I can carry him to the car, just-”

 _“No!”_ Violet snapped, jumping back and holding her brother close, shaking slightly. “No! I can carry him!”

“Violet, you look awful-”

“He’s my _brother,_ I can _carry-”_

“Violet.” Moxie said, holding up a hand. “I understand. I know you don’t want to let go of him, but we have to carry him over to the car. I’ll be able to hold him better, and you need to take care of your little sister.” Violet hesitantly glanced at Sunny, noticing that the toddler did look a bit tired. “I’ll stay within your line of sight at all times, okay?”

Violet bit her lip, staring down at her unconscious brother for a moment. Then she looked up at Moxie and said, “If you hurt him, I _will_ kill you.”

“I believe you.” Moxie said, holding out her arms. Slowly, Violet passed her brother over to the adult, feeling awful as she did. Then she turned towards Sunny, lifting the tired toddler up. Sunny put her head on Violet’s shoulder, though her eyes were also on Klaus.

“Let’s get back to the others, yeah?” Moxie said.

Violet nodded, and followed her back out of the Lab.

 

They parked the car outside of Hungry’s, and Moxie said, “I’ll carry him, we’ll put him somewhere inside until we find a place for you to stay tonight.”

“I can carry him.” Violet said again, even as Moxie opened the door and started to lift the unconscious teenager.

“You need to carry Sunny.” Moxie said, and Violet sighed. She lifted the toddler, who’d fallen asleep on her lap a few miles ago, and climbed out of the car.

She noticed, as she did, that two of the other kids were standing by the door, watching- Carrmelita and Duncan, she thought. After a second, Carmelita turned, running in the door, probably to tell everyone they were there. But Duncan was standing stock-still, looking incredibly pale, his eyes locked on them. Violet briefly wondered what was so worrying about how they looked- they didn’t seem _that_ dirty?- until she realized his gaze was fixed on Klaus, who was still asleep.

_Oh._

After another moment, Duncan finally moved, racing towards them. Violet froze up, instinctively moving so that Sunny was behind her. By the time she relaxed, Duncan had already reached them, looking absolutely terrified.

“Kid, are you-” Moxie began.

“What happened to him?” he asked, tears springing to his eyes, reaching forwards to feel for a pulse on Klaus’s wrist. “What’s wrong with him, is he-”

“He’s okay!” Violet said quickly. “He’s okay. He’s just asleep.”

Duncan stared at her a moment, before turning back to Klaus, moving his hand from his wrist to brush a strand of hair out of his friend’s eyes. “Are you sure?” he asked, voice shaking.

“He’s fine.” Violet insisted, holding back her own tears. “He’s okay. We closed the Gate.”

Duncan let out a sigh of relief, looking back up at Moxie. “What are we… what do we do now?”

“We’ll figure it out, kid.” Moxie said softly. “Let’s get your friend inside-”

The door burst open, and Fiona, Isadora and Carmelita poured out, running and shouting over each other. Violet flinched back again, and Sunny was startled awake, letting out a cry of annoyance.

“What’s wrong with Klaus?” Isadora asked, horrified, as the three teenagers slid to a stop.

“Are you all okay?” Fiona asked, glancing from Klaus to Violet and Sunny.

“What the fuck did you do to your arm?” Carmelita asked, staring at Moxie.

“Uh…” Violet paused.

“Okay, kids,” Moxie said, “Let’s get Klaus inside. He’s going to be fine, but he needs to rest. Me and my friends will figure out where you can go tonight- you’re not sleeping in the diner. Are you all okay? Do you need anything? Where’s your brother?”

She directed this last question at the Quagmires, and Violet looked over at them as she did. Isadora said, “He’s in a booth. He had to sleep, too.”

“Is he okay?” Violet asked. Duncan and Isadora nodded, and Violet sighed.

They made their way into the diner, where Violet and Sunny gave the other kids a brief explanation as Moxie placed Klaus down and pulled the other very concerned adults aside to talk.

When they’d managed to catch each other up, Fiona leaned towards the other kids, and said, “If we need to run, I can carry one of the boys. Violet, you think you can get the other?”

Violet nodded quickly. “I can’t drive, though.”

“All of us can.” Fiona said. “I can teach you-”

“I know the basics, I’ve just never done it.”

“Good. Mel can be a good distraction while we set off, I can take first drive-”

“Fi,” Duncan interrupted quietly, “Can’t we stay a little bit? The Lab’s as good as shut down.”

“This one is.” Fiona said. “But until we’re sure the whole thing’s gone, we can’t let our defenses down.”  

“So we should stay here with Moxie.” Duncan said. “She can help.”

“Duncan-”

“Protetto.” Sunny said quietly. _“I agree with Duncan. I think these people are safe.”_

“Sunny-” Violet began.

“We should just stay a little bit.” Isadora said. “But the second someone tries something, we need to be ready. Especially if they try to separate us.”

“Would they do that?” Violet asked, reaching to grab Sunny’s arm.

“They’re adults, they think they can do what they want to us.” Carmelita shrugged. “We just have to… make sure we’re one step ahead.”

Violet bit her lip and nodded. “Good plan. Good idea. We-”

They shut up as Moxie finally turned towards them. She walked over, and then said, very quietly, “Well, um… so, Kellar has to go call his sister and her wife, they’ve got some of our info and they’ll probably be here in a few days to help us gather what we need. Um, Pip and Squeak are going to gather our evidence, Jake and Cleo are going to make some calls-”

“Okay, why do we need to know?” Fiona asked.

Moxie sighed. “What I’m _trying_ to say is… you all are staying with me. Just for tonight, okay? I’ve got a place at a nearby inn, there should be room for you all for the night. We’ll try to move you somewhere more permanent and… well, bigger, as soon as we can.”

They glanced at each other cautiously, and then Duncan said, “Okay. Do you need any help while we’re there?”

“You all get some rest.” Moxie said, smiling slightly. “You deserve it. Come on, let’s figure out which car we can pile you all into.”

 

There were only three rooms at Moxie’s place- her bedroom, a bathroom, and a small living room. They placed Klaus onto the couch and Quigley onto the chair, and Moxie brought all the blankets and pillows she could find while Carmelita and Fiona pushed her tables to the side so they could all sleep on the floor.

“Jake and Cleo said they can get you some clean clothes tomorrow.” Moxie said. “They can take you shopping, if you want-”

“I’m fine.” Violet said sharply.

“I’m not, I wanna go shopping.” Carmelita said, looking excited. “Do we have a budget?”

“Probably?”

“We have two pairs of clothes.” Fiona shrugged. “Do we need more?”

“Oh my God.” Moxie sighed. “Look, I’m going to work on some stuff in my room, unless you guys want that, I can sleep here-”

“We’re fine in here.” Isadora said.

“If you need anything, I’m right over there.” Moxie said. “Just get some rest-”

“What are we doing about the Lab?” Violet asked.

Moxie hesitated, before saying, “We’ve got all the information we need, but we can’t just drop it all at once. This was some wild shit, and not a lot of people are going to believe it.”

“It’s true, though.” Duncan said.

“We know that, but how many people are just going to believe stuff about other dimensions and superpowers? There’s also the fact that if we _do_ drop the ‘superpowers’ thing, you kids are _never_ going to have privacy ever again.”

“So then what the _fuck_ is your plan?” Violet asked.

“We’re working on watering the story down.” Moxie said. “Getting the Lab shut down for related mistakes. Several people were killed by those monsters last year- we just have to edit some evidence, and suddenly the Department of Energy’s been experimenting with toxic chemicals and dumping the dead bodies of anyone who got affected. Stuff like that. Once it’s down, I’m going to me using some connections to try and get you all safe. I promise, nothing’s going to happen to you now. Okay?”

They hesitantly nodded, and Moxie gave them a slight smile, before going back to her room.

“Should we leave?” Carmelita asked.

“We should stay.” Duncan said.

Fiona sighed. “Better stay the night. Just don’t get too comfortable.”

“Sunny, stay by me?” Violet said, as the others went to spread out the blankets. Sunny nodded, smiling and giving her sister a quick hug. “We’ll sleep by Klaus, too. Maybe tomorrow you can show me your abilities? You said you wanted to do that.”

“Ye!”

Before she could say anything else, she heard a slight gasp from Isadora. “Quigley!”

Violet froze up a moment, and then turned, placing Sunny onto the ground. Isadora and Duncan had rushed to the chair, where Quigley was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. She stared, paralyzed, as the triplets checked him over.

“Are you okay?” Duncan asked.

“‘m fine.” Quigley said, his voice a bit hoarse. “Fine. Where’re we?”

“With Moxie Mallahan.” Duncan said. “She’s gonna watch us tonight.”

“Do you need anything?” Isadora asked.

“I’m fine, really.” Quigley said, and as he scanned the room, he spotted the couch. “What happened to Klaus?”

“He’s okay. He’s just sleeping.” Duncan said, also nervously glancing at Klaus.

Quigley nervously nodded, and then he turned slightly, and spotted Violet.

The two teens stared at each other in a stunned silence for a moment. Then Violet ran forwards, throwing her arms around Quigley and letting out a choked sob.

“Violet!” he said, and he embraced her, too, shaking slightly. They hugged a moment, and as soon as Violet pulled away, Quigley said, “You’re here. You’re here! You found me-”

“I’m sorry.” Violet said quickly, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”

“You found me.” Quigley said again, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face. She sat up on the edge of the chair, for the moment forgetting that anyone else was in the room.

“I’m sorry.” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have left you, and then you were- I should’ve been here!”

“Don’t.” Quigley said quickly, reaching forwards to grab her hands. “Don’t do that. You did nothing wrong, okay?”

“I’m s-”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” Quigley said. “Okay? Say that.”

“Okay?”

“Violet.”

Violet took a deep breath, her voice breaking slightly. “I have nothing to apologize for.”

Quigley nodded. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine. What about you?”

“I… I’ll be fine, too.” Quigley glanced up at her. “We’re alive, huh?”

Violet nodded, tears in her eyes. “We’re all together. We’re… we’re safe, I think. I… I wanted to find you sooner-”

“It’s okay.” Quigley sat up a bit straighter, and he flinched.

“What’s wrong?”

“Got a burn. Not a problem.”

“Let me see-”

“No, it’s fine, really, we already treated it.”

“Are you sure?” After Quigley nodded, Violet’s face went slightly red. “Look, I know right before I-I left, I, uh…”

“Oh, yeah-”

“Look.” Violet glanced away. “If you don’t- if you, um… look, I’m sorry I-”

Quigley sat up a bit more, putting a hand on her cheek and waiting until she faced him, and then he leaned in and kissed her.

That was about the moment they remembered they weren’t alone, mainly because the other teens just started shouting.

“Whoa! _Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”_ Isadora screamed.

“What the _fuck?_ What the _fuck!”_ Duncan shouted, eyes wide.

“Fi, get off me!” Carmelita shrieked, trying to rip herself away from Fiona, who’d instinctively slapped her hands over the younger girl’s eyes.

Sunny, meanwhile, just burst into hysterical giggles.

Violet’s face went more red, as did Quigley’s. “Shit.” Quigley muttered. Violet glanced at him for a moment, both trying to decide what exactly to do. Then they both started laughing, just before Moxie raced in.

“I heard screaming.” she said, looking startled. “What’s going on?”

“Our brother has a _girlfriend!”_ Isadora shouted. “That’s not allowed!”

“He can’t do that!” Duncan added. “Not without telling us first! What the _fuck?”_

Moxie stared at them in bewilderment for a second, and then said, “You know what? Not my problem.”

 

The next day, Moxie went out to meet with the other adults, and came back, saying, “So. Some news.”

The kids looked up from the living room; the Baudelaires were sitting on the couch, Violet keeping one arm around Klaus at all times, while the Quagmires, Fiona and Carmelita had spread across the floor; they had just been talking, trying to catch each other up on everything, but it wasn’t a nice conversation. Violet looked pained whenever they mentioned Quigley’s possession, and awkwardly avoided questions on what had happened to her while she was alone.

“What’s wrong?” Fiona asked, her hand shooting to her bag beside her.

“Nothing bad!” Moxie said quickly. “Nothing bad, really!”

“Then what’s the news?” Violet asked.

Moxie stared at her for a moment, and then she said, “Well. Kellar has to go meet his sister, Lizzie, her and Ornette are coming in, and Pip and-”

“Skip to the interesting part.” Carmelita said.

“Don’t be rude!” Duncan reprimanded.

“The ‘interesting part’,” Moxie said, “Is you’ll have to stay with me for a while, as we deal with the whole ‘getting the government off your backs’ thing.”

“We can find a place.” Fiona said. “You don’t have to-”

“I’m not letting you off on your own.” Moxie said sternly. “But I’m not sure we can keep you all in here for very long.”

“We could try that house in the woods.” Isadora said. “Just set up camp there. I don’t think anyone’s lived there in a while.”

“Oh, yeah, that house.” Moxie said quietly. “About that-”

“Don’t tell me someone lives there!” Duncan looked worried. “We performed an exorcism in there, the place is a _mess!”_

“No one lives there anymore.” Moxie said, moving to sit on the floor by them. “But, um, Kellar did manage to find some stuff on it last night, and…” She looked over at the Baudelaires. “It turns out it’s your house.”

“What?” Klaus asked.

“Your parents lived there.” Moxie said. “After they vanished, someone cleared it out- probably the Lab- and… guess nobody bought it, or maybe the Lab kept it for some reason.”

“That… that was our house?” Klaus was stunned.

“You guys were in our house?” Violet asked.

“Then does that mean they own it and we can hide out there?” Carmelita asked.

“Technically-” Moxie began.

“I didn’t even remember it.” Klaus said quietly.

“Well, you were, like, _two.”_ Violet said. “But if nobody’s living there, we could probably stay there a bit. It’s bigger than here.”

“Well,” Moxie said, “I’ll be staying with you, then, we don’t want you all alone.”

“Why? Think we’ll run off?” Fiona asked.

“No, we don’t want you getting hurt.” Moxie sighed. “Let me get some stuff, then we’ll go there; I’ll help you clean up a little, I’ll call Pip and Squeak and ask them to get you sleeping bags, you can each pick a room. This might take a while, but don’t get too comfortable there.”

“We never do.” Fiona said.

“Ms Mallahan?” Quigley asked, looking over at her.

“Moxie.”

“Yeah, um…” he looked very nervous. “What happens to us when the Lab shuts down? Where do we go?”

They all turned to her, and she said, honestly, “I don’t know.”

“Are we going to go into foster care?” Quigley asked, grabbing onto Duncan’s hand and looking about ready to cry. “Are they gonna split us up? Are-”

“I won’t let that happen.” Moxie said quickly. “I won’t let that happen, we’re going to try and make sure nothing bad happens to you again.”

“Why?” Carmelita asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Why do you care what happens to us?” Carmelita crossed her arms, glaring at the ground. “What do you get out of it?”

Moxie stared at her in bewilderment for a while, which then turned to sadness. “I don’t… Carmelita, I’m not doing this for any kind of reward. I just want you to be safe because I care about you.”

Carmelita looked incredibly uncomfortable. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Let me get my stuff.” Moxie said. “Then we’ll head out, okay?”

“So you’re just going to, what, live with us?” Violet asked nervously.

 _“Temporarily.”_ Moxie said. “Until we find something better. Okay?”

They nodded, and as Moxie went to her room to grab her stuff.

“We are going to stay for a little bit, right?” Duncan asked.

“We can wait and see what they’re planning to do with us.” Isadora said softly. “If we don’t like it, we can go, but… I dunno. I think some… some stability would be good for us all.”

Fiona nervously glanced away, and Violet stiffened slightly, grabbing tighter onto her brother’s hand.

Then, quietly, Sunny said, “Let’s go?”

“Sunny’s right.” Klaus said. “Let’s get our stuff, and… go home.”

 

That night felt very wrong.

They’d cleaned up the house a little, and settled into different places for the night; the Baudelaires spread out in a small room, while Fiona and Carmelita fell asleep in the bedroom and the Quagmires found somewhere else to set up their stuff. Moxie had found a place, too, but she said something about working all night instead of sleeping. Klaus couldn’t sleep at all; he kept sitting up, glancing at the door, as if waiting for some disturbance.

Well, there was quite a lot of disturbance at the moment. As Klaus grabbed the edge of his sleeping bag, he heard another peal of thunder. It wasn’t that bad a storm, really, but… he still hated it. Violet was a few feet from him, she’d fallen asleep before the thunder began, and she seemed to be sleeping through it alright.

Klaus felt a nudge at his side, and he turned to see that Sunny had crawled over to him, looking upset.

“Thunder?” Klaus asked, and Sunny nodded. He smiled slightly, picking her up. “Well, Moxie put some food in the kitchen. Want to distract yourself?” She nodded again, so he stood up, walking her out into the hall. “Which way was the kitchen agai- left, left, yeah.”

He edged open the door, walking inside and putting her onto the counter. “What do you want to make?”

“Cocoa.”

“Okay, what will you need?”

She started listing off ingredients, and Klaus opened the pantry and fridge, piling everything beside the toddler, before saying, “I can cut stuff for you if you need, do you know where Moxie put the measuring cups?”

“Pavimento.” _“Still on the floor, she hasn’t unpacked them yet.”_

“Okay, I’ll get those out.”

Thunder sounded again, and Sunny jumped, her hands flying to her ears. Klaus watched her a moment, before going for the cups. He started digging through the bag, nervously bouncing his leg, until he heard the door creak open again, and he shot to attention.

Violet peered in, looking very worried, but the second she saw Klaus and Sunny, she relaxed considerably. “There you are.” she said. “I… you were gone, and-”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry.” Klaus said. “I- I should’ve left a note-”

“We’ll have to keep post-its by our sleeping bags or something.” Violet muttered. “What are you doing?”

“Sunny doesn’t like thunder,” Klaus said, “So… I was hoping a distraction might help.”

Violet looked ready to cry, as she glanced at her baby sister. “Not a fan of storms?” she asked.

Sunny hesitantly shook her head. “Loud.”

“Oh.” Violet said. She moved forwards, picking the infant up off the counter and hugging her. “You think cooking will work?”

“Maybe.” Klaus said. “She hasn’t had much chance to experiment, but… she likes the cookbooks I find for her.”

There was another roar of thunder, much louder than the last few. Sunny let out a small scream, burying her head into Violet’s shirt, and Klaus flinched, too, instinctively covering his ears.

He glanced over at Violet, and they shared a look. Then, quietly, Violet said, “Sun, let’s hang out in the living room a bit, okay?”

The three siblings went over to where Moxie had pushed the couch back, and sat down. Violet held Sunny close, then put an arm around Klaus, waiting a moment as her brother leaned onto her shoulder. “You’re too big for this.” she muttered, smiling slightly.

“Shut up.”

“Well, you’re the one who apparently had a growth spurt while I was gone.”

“It wasn’t like I _wanted_ to.”

“Grow up slower.” Violet said, her smile dropping just slightly.

There was another clash of thunder, and they all jumped as the door flew open. Isadora stumbled in, calling, “Quigley! Quig!”

“He’s not with you?” Violet asked, eyes wide.

“He freaked out, I think, and-” Isadora looked completely panicked. “And he just- he vanished! And-”

Violet relaxed slightly. “He’ll be back in a second.”

“What?”

“He occasionally panic-teleports, it happened once or twice. It’ll be fine, once he realizes what he did he’ll come back-”

“Violet, he just-”

They heard a distant, _“Found him!”_ and after a moment, Duncan came in, holding hands with his brother.

“Sorry.” Quigley said, his face red. “I just… the storm was loud, and… normally this doesn’t bother me, I’m sorry-”

“It’s fine, just… don’t scare us like that.” Isadora said, giving her triplets a quick hug.

“We don’t want you disappearing again.” Duncan said.

“Where’d you go?” Violet asked.

Quigley glanced over at her, shaking slightly. “Just the deck. A few more feet and I would’ve been stuck in the rain.”

“Would not have been fun.” Klaus said.

Quigley shrugged. “I think rain’s nice, but-”

As the thunder sounded again, the Quagmires jumped. Sunny looked up at them, and whispered, “Una?” which meant something like, _“Do you want to stay with us?”_

The triplets nodded, and Duncan ran over to sit by Klaus, grabbing onto his arm and curling up beside him. Quigley sat by Violet, quickly sliding his hand over hers, and Isadora sat by him, putting her arm around his shoulders and staring up at the ceiling. “How long do you think it’ll last?” she asked.

“I can try to sense it.” Violet volunteered.

“No, it’s fine.” Isadora said. “Just-”

The door creaked open again, and they turned to see Carmelita peer in. “Geez, guys,” she said quietly, “Nobody told me we were having a team meeting.”

“We’re not.” Violet said as the girl walked into the room, crossing her arms in mock anger. “Just… hanging out.”

“Well, hang out with us.” Carmelita said. “Fiona woke up and flipped cause none of you were where you were supposed to be- speaking of which…” She moved to the door, calling, “Fi! In here!”

“We’re not gonna all fit on the couch.” Duncan muttered.

“We can make it.” Isadora said, scooting over as Carmelita flopped onto the spot beside her.

Fiona did come in, looking relieved. “What are you all doing in here?”

“Waiting out the storm.” Violet said quietly.

“Come sit by us, Fi.” Duncan said.

“We should probably get back to sleep-”

“Come bond with us, you fuck.” Carmelita said.

Fiona rolled her eyes, but laughed as she sat beside Duncan. “What are we doing exactly?”

“Just… sitting for a bit.” Klaus said. “It’s nice.”

There was another crack of thunder, and Sunny sniffled, her hands flying to her ears again. Klaus flinched, gripping tighter onto both Violet and Duncan.

“Hey, hey…” Violet said softly, holding her baby sister closer. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just another storm.”

There was a bit of silence for a little, and then Sunny softly started to sing, in her tiny, high-pitched voice.

_“Blackbird singing in the dead of night…”_

That was really the only line she knew, so after a moment, Violet continued, _“Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”_

Klaus joined in, and the two siblings sang quietly as the storm raged outside.

_“All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise…”_

The next morning, Moxie left her room to find all eight kids still on the couch, having fallen asleep on each other.


	42. Epilogue - Snowflakes

**CHAPTER FORTY-TWO**

_Epilogue - Snowflakes_

 

_December 15 1984_

 

“Fiona, get back here!”

Fiona laughed as Isadora chased her through the kitchen, finally getting close enough to grab her arm and yank her back, which caused both girls to crash onto the floor.

“Ow!” Fiona giggled, “Fuck, Isadora-”

“We’re _all_ doing this, and you are not an exception!” Isadora said, trying to sound stern and barely hiding her own laughter. “Even Klaus’s helping set up, so you have no excuse!”

“I’m not doing a stupid party, literally _nobody’s_ coming!”

“You’re coming, and you’re going to wear a fancy sweater or a dress or some shit!”

“I’m not going to change outfits for a pretend party!”

“It’s not pretend if we’re having fun, and by God, you are going to have fun!”

Isadora finally stood up, holding out an arm for her friend, and Fiona could barely hide her own giggles as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and grabbed Isadora’s hand. “Is Moxie coming, then?”

“She fucking better, or Mel’s going to kill her.” Isadora said.

The two girls walked back into the living room, where Carmelita was standing on a stepladder they’d dug out of the closet, hanging paper snowflakes from the ceiling.

“So, Mel,” Duncan asked from the couch, where he was setting out the mugs they’d painted last week with Ornette, when she and Lizzie had been asked to watch them while Moxie fought with some newspaper or another, “Is this what the school dance looked like?”

“Naw, ours is better.” Carmelita said, tossing her curls over her shoulder. “They always have some dumbass streamers and balloon arches that make you think you’re a baby.”

“Balloon arches don’t sound too bad.” Klaus said. “Mel, are you sure you don’t want me to put those up?”

“I can do it, bitch.” Carmelita said. “We don’t need magic to set up everything.”

“It’s not magic, and you literally never let me help.”

“Klaus,” Isadora said loudly, “Tell Fiona she’s gotta wear something nice.”

“We’re literally not even leaving the house.” Fiona said.

Klaus sighed, as Carmelita scurried down the ladder. “Just put on the sweater, Fi, you’re not winning this argument.”

“Oh, hey, Klaus, I _can_ think of a use for you!” Carmelita said. “Put this ugly ladder somewhere while I get the radio!”

Klaus rolled his eyes, flicking his hand and watching the stepladder close itself up and lower itself to the floor. “I can put this back in the closet,” he said, “And get the others.”

“I’ll go, too.” Duncan said, standing up. “Isa, you’re in charge of making Fiona look presentable.”

“What’s wrong with what I have on right now?”

“Fiona,” Carmelita said, sounding offended, “None of those colors match.”

“Who cares?”

“Nobody, but it makes Carmelita happy.” Klaus said. “Duncan, let’s go find our siblings and pray they’re not making out or anything.”

“Sunny’s with them, I doubt they’re even holding hands.” Isadora said. “I think they were in your guys’ room, Klaus.”

“Okay, be right back.” Klaus said. He moved past Isadora and Fiona, and Duncan jumped up, following him quickly down the hall.

 

“Yeah, you’ve got it!”

Violet smiled, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear and looking down at the guitar. “You don’t have to pretend, Quig.”

“I’m not pretending!” Quigley insisted. “Here, just… try it again.”

Violet gave him a look, then strummed again, her fingers moving to change the notes, repeating the _C, C, C, C-C-C, A, A, A, A-minor, F, F,  F, F-F-F, G-G-G-G7_ in her head.

 _“What’s that playing on the radio?”_ Quigley sung, a little quietly, watching as Violet tried to play. _“Why do I start swaying to and fro? I have never heard that song before, but if I don’t hear it anymore…”_

 _“It’s still familiar to me, sends a thrill right through me…”_ Violet joined in, smiling a little. _“Cause those chords remind me of the night that I first fell in love to… those magic changes-”_

“Um?”

Violet and Quigley glanced up, the former a little annoyed. “Klaus, we’re busy.”

Klaus and Duncan stood in the doorway a moment, and after a second, they came inside, moving to the small toddler playpen that was Sunny’s bed until they could find something better for her; the young girl was flipping through a picture book, barely paying attention to anyone else. Klaus reached her first, saying, “You ready, Sunny?”

“Hmm.” Sunny said, before flipping to the last page. She scanned it briefly, before nodding and lifting her arms so that Klaus could pick her up.

“I see someone managed to get you into a party dress.” Klaus said, looking down at the frilly skirt.

“Issi.” Sunny rolled her eyes.

“Is Moxie back?” Quigley asked, bouncing his leg and glancing over at Violet, who was sitting beside him on the edge of her bed and still moving her fingers across the guitar strings, trying to memorize the chord progression.

“Not yet, but I think Isadora and Carmelita will explode if we don’t get over there soon.” Klaus said. “Any idea why they’re so excited about it?”

“Maybe they forgot the day,” Violet said, “And they think Chanukah’s starting.”

“Carmelita was pretty excited to teach Fiona how to play dreidel.” Duncan said, sitting on the chair beside the Baudelaires’ desk for a moment.

“They’re not just going to forget the day.” Quigley said. “Maybe Carmelita’s more upset than we thought about missing the school dance.”

“This is the same Carmelita who said she would rather throw herself into the Upside Down than go back to Hawkins school, right?” Violet raised an eyebrow.

“Fair.” Quigley said. “Do we have to go now? I wanted to show Vi how to play ‘Blackbird.’”

“You can do that later.” Duncan said. “When there isn’t a chance Carmelita and Isadora will murder us.”

“Aw, Violet’ll protect us.” Quigley said, leaning his head on her shoulder as she started laughing.

“I dunno,” Violet said, “Is Fiona on their team?”

“No.” Klaus and Duncan both said very quickly.

“Then we’ve got a fighting chance.” Violet said. She gently placed the guitar down beside her, then threw an arm around Quigley, kicking her feet and jokingly continuing, “Well, our options seem to be risking a fight with two of our own, or having to sit through whatever shenanigans they have planned for us.”

Quigley laughed, too, saying, “I mean, we could just sneak out the back and hide in the forest until they’ve forgotten why they’re mad at us.”

“Yeah, no,” Klaus said, as Sunny rolled her eyes, “You’re not doing that.”

Violet let out a mock groan, and then said, “Ok _ay_ , I _guess_ we’ll go hang out with you idiots.”

“Hey, these idiots didn’t leave the backdoor open and get us a new pet raccoon.” Duncan said.

“That was _one time!”_ Quigley said. “And the raccoon’s gone now!”

“She could come back.” Klaus said.

“She?” Sunny asked.

“Sunny’s right, we never actually found out what gender our raccoon was.” Violet said.

“No, I think I was a bit too busy tossing it out a window.” Klaus said. “And I _think_ we should get back to the living room.”

 _“Fine.”_ Violet rolled her eyes, getting to her feet. “But if Carmelita tries to teach me to dance again, _I’m_ tossing someone out a window.”

 

Isadora dragged Fiona back into the living room after finally getting her a decent sweater. “Okay,” Violet asked, looking over from the table she was standing on, “Why are we here?”

“Why are you on the table?” Isadora asked.

“I want to try and hit the snowflakes.” Violet said.

“And I’m gonna kill her.” Carmelita said, turning the radio down slightly- it was playing some kind of popular song none of them knew the words to. “We worked _hard_ on those, didn’t we, Quigley?”

“She can do what she wants.” Quigley shrugged, looking up from the chair. “It’s not like we’re going to use the snowflakes for anything else.”

“Cool.” Carmelita said. “Fuck you.”

“Feed one to Sunny!” Duncan called from the couch, where he and Klaus were carefully watching Violet as she batted at a paper snowflake.

“No!” Carmelita yelled, as everyone started to laugh.

“What’s this all for, anyway?” Klaus asked, reaching for a book off the table in front of him.

“We’ll wait til Moxie gets back,” Isadora said, flopping onto a beanbag chair. “She should be here soon, right?”

“Unless she’s abandoned us.” Fiona shrugged, moving to sit by the fireplace, as Sunny stood up and wandered over to the table to grab her a mug.

“Don’t joke about that!” Duncan said, curling up uncomfortably.

“Yeah, but doesn’t she usually leave us with a babysitter?” Violet said, finally flopping onto the couch besides her brother. “As if we’re five fucking years old.”

“She said she’d only be gone an hour.” Isadora said.

“It’s been, like, two.” Quigley said, half-jokingly. “We’re gonna have to learn to live on our own.”

“We _know_ how to live on our own.” Klaus reminded him. “But I guess we could live with Jake and Cleo.”

“Oh, we can’t do that.” Violet said. “Sunny and Jake would never leave the kitchen.”

“True.” Sunny said, sitting beside Fiona and leaning up against the older girl.

“Shut up, we haven’t been abandoned.” Carmelita said. “And-”

They heard the door open, and Violet, Quigley and Fiona tensed a second. “Moxie!” Duncan called, smiling. “We’re in the Living Room!”

“Save us!” Fiona called, causing Sunny to giggle.

After a moment, Moxie came in, looking bewildered at the decorations. “What’s this? Did you set this up? You didn’t invite anyone over, did you?” she asked, glancing around for some kind of explanation.

She was distracted, then, by Duncan jumping up and running over to her, almost knocking her over with a hug. “Where have you _been?”_

“Whoa, kid, careful.” Moxie said, smiling a little as Sunny also ran over and started babbling. She glanced at the other kids; Violet and Fiona still sat where they were, watching cautiously, while Quigley waved and Klaus awkwardly placed his book back on the table.

“Duncan’s right, where were you?” Violet said, crossing her arms.

Isadora and Carmelita shared an excited look, and Moxie said, “First thing’s first. Fiona, did you all get your exercises done while I was gone?”

Fiona relaxed a little, smiling; she liked that she was in charge of something. “Yep. Even got Duncan to do it; he managed to turn his telepathy off after only a few minutes.”

“Nice work, kid.” Moxie said, and Duncan beamed.

“And Quigley teleported to the roof and back.” Isadora added.

“I fixed the boiler.” Violet added hesitantly.

“And Sunny knocked down a tree.” Klaus said. “So. There’s that.”

“Good.” Moxie said. “Did-”

“Did you _get it?”_ Carmelita asked impatiently.

“Get what?” Violet asked suspiciously.

As the kids all looked to Moxie, she glanced around the room again, a dawning realization on her face. “You really didn’t have to do this.” she said after a second.

“Well, we assumed you’d get it,” Isadora said, “And we wanted to, you know… put something together.”

“It was my idea.” Carmelita proudly announced. “I don’t get to host parties anymore, so I thought-”

“What are you talking about?” Violet asked again.

Moxie sighed, slowly moving towards the middle of the room, reaching into her jacket for something. The teens crowded around her, with Violet stopping only to pick up Sunny.

Then she pulled out some papers, flipping them over to show the kids. They stared a while, and then Fiona said, “I have no idea what that means.”

“It’s a bunch of boring legal shit.” Carmelita said, looking at Moxie. “Is that good?”

Klaus was the first to realize what it was. He froze a moment, and then looked up, a smile on his face. “Moxie, are these guardianship papers?”

“Holy shit!” Duncan said.

“You’re our guardian?” Quigley asked, eyes lighting up.

“Okay, _technically,”_ Moxie said, putting the papers onto the table, “These aren’t adoption papers or anything, it’s just certification that I’m responsible for-”

“You’re our _guardian!”_ Duncan said excitedly.

“Don’t get too excited, kid!” Moxie said. “It’s temporary guardianship, I have a job that requires a lot of travel, so if I get a new case Jake and Cleo will-”

“But you’re legally responsible for us, right?” Klaus asked.

Moxie sighed. “Yes, I am _legally_ in charge of making sure none of you die.”

“Whoo!” Carmelita cheered, grabbing a box off of a bookshelf, reaching in, and then throwing confetti into the air.

“Where did you get that?” Quigley asked, bewildered.

“Wait,” Klaus asked, turning to Isadora, “How’d you guys find out this was happening?”

“We overheard her on the phone.” Carmelita shrugged. “She told us to keep quiet in case they wanted us to get sent into foster care and she’d have to fistfight a judge.”

“I never said that.” Moxie said.

“Hold on.” Fiona said, holding up a hand and turning to Moxie. “What exactly happened?”

“Well, I was meeting with a representative of the Department of Energy.” Moxie said. “They’re pretty pissed at me for the article thing, but they recognize they fucked up in regards to you all. So me, Jake and Cleo all have official custody of you, the government’ll be paying for your education, which is a huge relief, I wasn’t sure if college for eight kids was in the budget-”

“That’s if I catch up to a college level.” Fiona said quietly.

“You’ll catch up fast, Fi.” Isadora said quickly. “You’ve already got a lot of math and science down.”

Violet bit her lip, pushing her hair behind her ear, and then she said, “Did, um… did you manage to- to find out…?”

Moxie shook her head. “Sorry, Vi, couldn’t get a hold of Kit.”

They all felt a bit awkward at that; Violet still hadn’t said much of what had happened with her and Kit, only that they’d had to separate and that Kit might not want to see her or help them out. Still, Violet had hoped to hear something from her.

“But,” Moxie said, “They said next Summer should be a good time to try and, you know, let you back into town. We’re working on a cover story for how all of… this happened, but in the meantime, Violet and Quigley, you’re officially alive.”

“Thank God.” Quigley said, and he and Violet high-fived.

“If I have to work,” Moxie said, “Jake and Cleo’ll be staying with you- Jake’s here to help out his Aunt, Cleo’s hoping to get a job at the school- they have an opening for a science teacher- but, basically, I’ll be staying here with you.”

“Because I’m assuming they still don’t want us out of Hawkins?” Fiona asked.

Moxie sighed. “We’ve talked about this, it’s not for surveillance reasons, they just want to know they can find you if something goes wrong and someone tries to hurt you. I don’t like it much either, but if something happens to you, I’d much prefer we force the government to actually protect you than be stuck defending ourselves.”

“And, besides,” Isadora said, “If it backfires on us, Fi, you can just poison anyone who attacks us.”

“True.” Fiona nodded.

“And Sunny can throw a car at someone!” Duncan added.

“Boom!” Sunny shouted, throwing up her arms and laughing.

“And, now that we’re all settled,” Carmelita said, “Isadora and I made cake!”

“Sunny made cake.” Isadora corrected. “And we hid it in the back of the pantry all night.”

“But we didn’t tell her why!” Carmelia said.

“Fun.” Sunny giggled.

“I can go get it!” Duncan volunteered, looking excited. “Where is it, again?”

“Behind the cans.” Isadora said.

“Oh! I found a box of balloons in the attic!” Quigley said. “I can pop up and get em, hold on!”

“Why were there-?” Violet began, but Quigley had already disappeared.

“I’ll go with Duncan.” Klaus said.

“So long as you don’t carry the cake.” Isadora said quickly.

“Yeah, you’ll drop it.” Carmelita said.

“That was _one time-”_

 

“Oh my God, they actually made one.” Duncan said, pulling out a small vanilla cake from the shelf.

He placed it onto the counter, before grabbing two of the cans they’d had to pull out of the pantry, shoving them back in. Klaus started helping restock, saying, “What, did you think they were lying?”

“No, it’s just… insane.” Duncan said, smiling a little. “We’re… Klaus, in just a few months, we can be normal kids. Go into town, go see a movie-”

“And you get an excuse to talk about journalism with Moxie all day.” Klaus said. “Seeing as she’s now our temporary guardian.”

“Yeah!” Duncan paused. “Oh, were you making fun of me?”

“A little.”

Duncan smiled, giving Klaus a playful shove. “Shut up!”

Once they’d finished restocking the pantry, Klaus said, “You don’t think Carmelita thinks we’re throwing a big party, do you?”

“She’s not going to sneak out alcohol, if that’s what you mean.” Duncan laughed. “It won’t be like the party at Esme’s house, or Moxie would kill her.”

“I know, but… I just kinda hope we just sit and talk and don’t do anything too loud.”

“I feel like your idea of a wild party would be everyone picking a book and then shutting up and reading for a few hours.”

“But wouldn’t that be fun?”

Duncan laughed, “Stop being so adorable, it’s not fair.”

Klaus went a bit red, and he went even redder as Duncan leaned over and gave him a quick kiss.

“Um…” Klaus said, staring at Duncan for a moment, a bit in shock. Duncan laughed again, and after a second Klaus smiled. “Thanks?” Shit, shit, that was probably a dumb thing to say…

“God,” Duncan said, grinning brightly, “I love you.”

Klaus’s face lit up, and then they heard a loud, “Hey, idiots!” as Carmelita peered into the kitchen. “The hell is taking so long?”

“Piss off!” Duncan said, though he was still smiling. “We found your stupid cake!”

“Great, bring it in, Sunny’s trying to eat my decorations.”

Klaus grinned, grabbing Duncan’s hand, and he said, “Well, we can’t stop her, Sunny does what she wants.”

“Tha’s right!” they heard Sunny yell from the living room.

 

Violet sat on the porch steps, watching the sunset over the trees. Everyone said they’d join her in a moment, which was good, but… it was nice to have a few minutes alone.

She shut her eyes, gripping onto her cup of hot chocolate, and after a second, she said, “So, can we trust her?”

She turned, seeing the imaginary image of her Mother. Beatrice watched her for a moment, and then said, “I think so, yes. She does care about you.”

“I’m sure Kit cared, too-”

“Well, Moxie’s not working for the Lab, at least.”

Violet sighed. “I just want to make sure nothing’s going to hurt the others. If I let my guard down-”

“You might be able to relax a little.” Beatrice shrugged. “Shadow can’t get to you with the Gate closed.”

Violet hesitated. “It’s still alive?”

“Yes. And it’s very, very pissed.” Beatrice said.

“That sounds like something important that I should know!”

“Well, you haven’t summoned me in a month or so,” Beatrice shrugged, “So when could I have told you? But you don’t have to worry about it unless some other Gate opens, which shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Well… in that case, I’m glad it’s pissed.” Violet said. “Son of a bitch deserves everything we did to him.”

Behind her, she heard, “Violet? Who are you talking to?”

Violet turned, seeing Klaus in the doorway, holding Sunny. She smiled as they sat beside her, and said, “Just myself.”

Klaus nodded, placing Sunny down onto the step beneath him. The toddler hugged her knees, grinning up at the sky. “This is pretty insane, isn’t it?” Klaus said. “Our lives are _weird_.”

“Come on,” Violet said, “I’m sure plenty of kids live their whole lives sheltered, then spend a year on the run from the government, before getting sheltered again.”

“Well, this time we have an end date for our isolation.” Klaus said. “Summertime, just in time to show up in town and scare some old classmates.”

“Can’t wait to tell everyone I came back from the dead, or whatever our cover story is.” Violet said. “Maybe my hair’ll have grown back by then.”

“Well, I read that hair grows about half an inch per month,” Klaus said, “So your hair’ll get about three inches longer by the time July comes around, assuming you don’t cut it again.”

“That’s a possibility. I like it short.” Violet said. “But I like it long, too, so… we’ll see.”

Klaus bit his lip, and then said, “You, um… you know, with your hair like this, you kinda look like Mother.”

Violet nodded. “I guess. You look more like her than I do.”

“Do you think…” Klaus hesitated. “Do you think we’ll ever get used to… not having her and Father here?”

Violet shrugged. “Guess we’ll have to see. But… I’m glad we finally have somewhere safe to stay.”

“And…” Klaus smiled. “I’m glad we finally have you back.”

“Together.” Sunny said.

Violet nodded, and then the three siblings sat in silence, waiting for their friends to come join them, and watching the sunset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are at the end (for now)!
> 
> I'll write Part Three sometime after Stranger Things Season Three drops, which should be this July. If it goes the way I think it will, I may be able to include my other two children, Friday and Beatrice II, which will be *great.* 
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading this! I love all of you, hope to see you soon! :D
> 
> ~ Midas


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